


Reconciling Hollywood

by qthelights



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Actors, Big Bang Challenge, First Impressions, First Kiss, First Time, Hiatus, Hollywood, Humor, In Public, Los Angeles, M/M, Misunderstanding, Supernatural and J2 Big Bang Challenge 2010, Trailer Sex, rocking chair sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-05
Updated: 2010-10-05
Packaged: 2017-10-30 00:25:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 31,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/325755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/qthelights/pseuds/qthelights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Misha has always prided himself on his mastery of the first impression - both giving and receiving. After all, people are easy enough to read if examined through the appropriate lens. For the last two years he's stuck to his guns and his assumption that Jensen is just a good guy who made a dick mistake back when he thought Misha was disposable. Pushed him up against a trailer door and took because he could. But now, with Jared overseas with his new bride, Jensen around more than ever, and a decision weighing heavy on his conscience, Misha realizes that truly knowing Jensen might be nearly as impossible as knowing himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Prologue**

 **July 2008**

He's only been on set for a couple of weeks. Given the screen time this entails for Castiel, he's really only been on set a few days. Officially. Unofficially, he's found himself pulled in on quite a few of his supposed days off. He could head home to LA, but there's no point really when he'll just have to turn around and get back on a plane in a week. Plus, they've put him up in a pretty nice hotel, so it's not exactly a chore. And seeing as he's in the city, well - a costume check here, makeup tests there, signing this, picking up that - he's been on the set 4 days out of 7 nearly every week since he began.

It's given him a fair amount of time to acclimatise, to creep silently around and get a feel for the set and the crew. He's only going to be around for a few episodes, but if anything, that makes him want to understand _more_ rather than less. It's an opportunity to learn even more than it's one to pad the resume. He has nothing to lose and unlike some other sets, this one is a blast. The creative vibe appeals to him in ways that working on 24 or ER never even came close to. This isn't Hollywood; this is Vancouver, and amazingly, everyone seems to want to be here - from the stars down to the set-dressers. It's refreshingly non-jaded and the enthusiasm everyone brings to the simple act of creation nourishes his soul.

It's why he became an actor, after all. To create.

Jared is pretty fucking funny. He hasn't had any scenes with him yet, but strangely, that seems to have no effect on how much time he's spent with him. Jared had loped up to him the first day he'd arrived and pulled him into a ridiculous hug like they were long lost friends, stage cried "It's my Angel!" and burst into uproarious laughter. Misha had been grinning in seconds and hamming it up with him in minutes. Jared was his kind of person - fucking insane and unafraid to behave like a kid because age decreed it inappropriate.

Jensen had been quieter, more reserved. He held back and watched Jared maul him with a bemused smile. _'Don't mind Jared. He's just five.'_

When Misha replied gravely that he himself was rarely much past six, Jensen had laughed, soft and throatily, and Misha could instantly tell that while Jared was the kind of guy he loved to hang around with, Jensen was the kind he liked to fuck.

Not that he thought that was about to happen. Two and a half weeks in and Misha's pretty sure Jensen doesn't swing that way. Or at least, he doesn't swing Misha's way. The protective glances thrown Jared's way make him wonder. Despite the early success at making Jensen laugh, he's not managed much of an impression since.

Jensen's nice enough, absolutely. Always checking he's good, pointing him in the direction of the right people and trailers; being a perfect Texan gentleman, Misha assumes.

But that's it, nothing more. There's no banter or teasing the way he secretly observes Jensen and Jared sharing in their down time between takes. No arm slung over his shoulder or scripts run through together. No going out of the way to talk when there's no reason to. Just cordial good behaviour when it can't be avoided.

Secretly, he's starting to think that maybe Jensen's a bit of a jerk.

He's been on other sets before, many of them actually, where the show was well established and the main actors insular and dismissive of guest cast. Where the leads have snubbed him and not bothered to learn his name, nationality or face. And while he doesn't exactly get that impression of Jensen, can't fault him on his manners, he also knows he hasn't been truly accepted. He doubts an offer is coming.

Which is a pity, he thinks, as he prepares for episode two of the season, because on screen they have some pretty fucking epic chemistry.

It's palpable, is what it is. Dean's anger at the angel is a slow burn of bass. Misha feels it in his bones when Jensen drops his voice, tries to match the gravel that flew out of Misha's mouth unbidden when Castiel started to speak. The anger Dean has, the resentment and pain is amazing, and the flash of fire in Jensen's eyes when they're filming is just this side shy of too intense for an audience.

And fuck but does Misha love it. It's a tease, a flirt, sex in vowels and growls. And he's not above playing to it, not until a director or producer tells him to cut it out and tone it down. They haven't and so he continues. Goads Jensen with his resonance and steps just that inch too close, another until he feels Jensen's breath, Dean's words, puff against his lips.

He's a professional and he's working. But Misha knows himself well enough to admit that if he didn't have to work on remembering lines and hitting marks, he'd not have enough distraction to keep himself from getting hard. As it is, it's a struggle.

When Cas pushes Dean just that step too far, when Jensen's eyes glitter sharp and dangerous, Misha wants nothing more than to keep on pushing. See what it would take to get Dean to fall away and Jensen to push back.

Preferably up against a wall.

But then the director yells "Cut!" and _Dean_ is gone, Jensen blinking and turning away. Resetting, calculating, picking up a script. The tension is gone. At the end of the day the most Misha gets is a 'See you tomorrow, Misha.' He watches Jensen extricate himself as quickly as he can, sees the smile that lights up when Jared comes into view.

It's probably a little unfair that he thinks Jensen's a dick. But to have that chemistry on screen and have none of it translate off, even in friendship? An offer of a beer or an invitation to lounge in a comfortable trailer and watch the game? The contrast is so sharp it smarts. So he does what he always does, shrugs and places Jensen into the pile of people he doesn't need to worry about or get to know and enjoys Jared's friendlier confrontations. Ignores the way Jensen shuts up the second Jared's insanity falls on Misha. It's not his problem and he'll be done soon anyway. Live and let be miserable.

Which is why, two days later after filming the scene at Bobby's for the end of episode two, when Misha has said goodbye to the crew, nodded at Jensen and headed out back to grab his things from the guest trailer, he's rather surprised to find Jensen slide up beside him, grab his wrist and yank him in the direction of his own trailer.

He doesn't even have a chance to process, not that he would - he's much more a 'go with the flow, analyse the shit out of it later' kind of guy - but some advance notice might have been nice, he thinks, as Jensen pulls him up the steps and into his trailer without a word. Slams him up against the door in the dark.

"Jensen, what-" he starts, but Jensen stops him by crushing his mouth to Misha's. It's quite effective as it turns out.

It comes out of nowhere, but Misha's not a fucking idiot. He opens his mouth and lets him in immediately, finds Jensen's hips and pulls him in hard.

Jensen's breathing is harsh and quick, his tongue slick and his hands hot where they slide under the trench-coat and yank the too large shirt out of Misha's pants. It's frantic and rushed and hot as all hell, even if Misha can barely see Jensen in the moonlight filtering in through the trailer's tiny windows.

Jensen pulls back, nipping at Misha's mouth in a way so unexpectedly intimate and exposed that Misha doesn't even know what to do with it. So he chooses instead to slide his hands up under Jensen's t-shirt, _Dean's t-shirt_ , press his palms to Jensen's flesh and follow ribs back to shoulder blades, spine and dip and ass and _fuck, yes_ he thinks as he digs his fingertips into Jensen's ass, pulls him in and grinds his hardening cock into Jensen's pelvis.

He's slammed back pretty roughly into the trailer door for his trouble, Jensen's fingers hot and insistent under his own shirt, fingertips clenching into the soft skin of his sides. Jensen groans and Misha can feel the answering hardness pressing achingly against his leg.

There's a sudden influx of colder air as Jensen pulls back from him, then the pressure of hands on his crotch, rubbing the ache of him and Misha's keening low and deep in his throat. His hips thrust into Jensen's hand of their own accord, not that Misha's about to stop them, not when Jensen's fingers are on his belt, _Castiel's belt_ , sliding and clinking and zipping and then just _there_ , burning in their grip around him through the soft cotton of his underwear. Misha let's his head fall back with a thud against the flimsy faux-wood of the door as Jensen begins to pull and pet and knead him with his hand. Jensen's mouth finds its way to his exposed throat and teeth are biting down on the tendons of his neck, mouthing and tonguing and nipping just hard enough to hurt but not to leave marks.

The frustration and anger and tension of the last few days, the suddenness of the onslaught and the fact that hey, Jensen is fucking insanely fuckable, combine and undo, and his hips are jerking in tiny little hiccups and Jensen only moves _faster, harder, rougher_. Goads him and works him until it's too much and Misha is coming hard and painfully fast inside his underwear.

Jensen's weight as he presses against him keeps him up, allows him a moment to breathe and regain equilibrium.

It's not until Jensen moves abortively against his thigh that he remembers it's only polite to return a favour. He kisses Jensen's mouth, wishes he could see if his lips are swollen, if they're dark and pink and wet, before he shimmies out from under him. He turns Jensen quickly, presses him back against the wall and drops to his knees on the dirty floor.

Misha doesn't waste any time, popping the button of Jensen's jeans and lowering the zip as fast as he can carefully manage. Jensen's breath gasps quick on the intake as Misha pulls down the band of his briefs and levers Jensen's cock out. It's hot and broad against his palm and again, he wishes he had a better visual than the silver-lit outline he gets. He can feel though, and smell and taste, and all of those things tell him he wants Jensen against his tongue. Wants to suck and coax and blow until Jensen's spilling down his throat.

And so he does.

Jensen writhes above him as Misha tastes and licks, hollows his cheeks and pulls him in against the flat of his tongue. Misha feels his lips stretch around the width, gauges girth with his mouth and length with the back of his throat. Soft moans are spilling from Jensen's mouth and spurring him on, teasing and pulling until the moans increase in speed and intensity, punctuated with gasps and flutters of muscle under Misha's palm where it's pressed flat to Jensen's stomach in anchor.

Too quickly, it's over, Jensen's hands flying to Misha's head, tangling in his hair and holding him still as he thrusts in again and again. Jensen's biting back a cry and spurting hot and salty against the back of Misha's tongue, trickling down his throat.

They stay there in the dark breathing and thrumming and growing cool in the chill of the air-conditioning. Eventually Misha rises, kisses the taste of Jensen into Jensen's mouth for a long minute, sedate and slow.

The moment pulls tight and threatens to break and Misha senses it's time for an exit. He does himself up and Jensen slides away into the trailer. He pauses, hand on the door and tries to make Jensen out in the dark but he can't. When he isn't stopped he slips out into the night, closing the door behind him with a soft click. He stands in the dark a moment longer, a little stunned and a lot spent. His head is too muddled to attempt coherent thought, but deep down he suspects there's churning and doubt going through it. How could there not be?

When the light inside flickers on warm and bright, spilling out into the dark Vancouver night, Misha shakes himself and hurries to his trailer to collect his shit before calling a cab.

It's not until much later, when he's lying boneless and shower-warm in his hotel bed, that he realises Jensen never said a word.

Jensen doesn't meet his eye the next day and Misha is disappointed, but he gets it. He's there, he's fresh meat and Jensen is a guy so pretty that it makes sense he's used to taking what he wants when he wants it. It just happened to be Misha for a few insanely hot minutes.

It makes him angry to be used so fucking easily, even if he was totally on board at the time. He decides Jensen really is a dick; young Hollywood royalty with pockets of cash and eyes too big for their brains. They never talk about it, and it never happens again, which confirms to Misha that he was just new and convenient - and that's all it was.

Time passes, episodes go on, more get added and he almost forgets. Jensen isn't a bad guy. It turns out he just needs time to get comfortable with an interloper in the midst. They become friends. Good friends. And Misha puts Jensen's behaviour, the cold freeze and snap thaw, down to a dick move by an okay guy. It's cool, if slightly disappointing. But people often are.

He moves on.

 

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

**May 2010**

Halfway through college, when he'd needed a break and an adventure, he had spent twelve months in Nepal and Tibet. It was enlightening in more ways than one, and since then, he has made a point to spend at least two weeks of each year at a silent retreat. It's not the same as doing it halfway up a Himalayan mountain, but it's restorative nonetheless. Usually it's a Buddhist one, but really, it doesn't matter. He's there to be quiet. Very quiet. To relax and let his mind turn off or on as he chooses, but above all, to keep his mouth firmly shut. It just so happens that the Buddhist ones always seem to be the quietest.

Filming wrapped three and a half weeks ago, three weeks ago he was back in LA and two weeks ago he flew to Kentucky. He'd spent the visit in glorious silence; talking to no one, having no one talk to him. No phones, no internet, no twitter. Just him. Well, him and a half dozen monks. But, generally speaking, monks weren't big on the socialising.

Normally, it would have done him the world of good. He's come to rely on those two weeks getting him through the other fifty each year. Being allowed to slough off his masks, personae and commitments and the restless need to be _doing_ and just _be_. Let his mind wander and sort through its mess of files, wipe away the dust and clutter.

He would come back serene, beatific smile on his face and often with an abundance of energy and the uncrushable need to talk the ear off of the first person who accidentally wandered into his field of vision; pin them down and subject them to his newly rediscovered theories of life the universe and everything.

Except this time.

Now, as he sits in his seat waiting for the plane to refuel - or whatever it is that's making a hundred or so people wait for takeoff for going on 45 minutes after boarding - he doesn't feel serene at all.

In place of the low-level thrum of contentment at his lot in life that would normally be suffusing his blood after a retreat he just feels itchy.

Partly, it's the cheap nylon fabric of the airplane seat that's scratching along his arms every time he moves. Partly, it's the 5 year old in the seat next to him getting sticky red sugar over everything while his indifferent mother nurses a less-sticky baby from the aisle seat and the fact that they've been sitting on the tarmac for the last 45 while jets come and go from the bays next to them.

But he can't even blame the waiting on the feeling of annoyance prickling under his skin. Not honestly, because he's been feeling it since before he unpacked his bags in the spartan stone-floored room that he's called home for the previous two weeks. Hell. Even before that, but he'd thought that was just the yearly need for concentrated solitude.

Apparently not.

Something doesn't feel right. It's been knocking him off kilter since the wrap party, since filming ended and Eric waved and said he'd be in touch. Since Jared clapped him on the shoulder and told him not to get in too much trouble while he was off travelling the world with his new bride, asked him to keep Jensen fed and watered for him. Since Jensen rolled his eyes and said he'd catch up with him over the break.

Misha likes to think he's fairly self-aware. Granted, often he deliberately doesn't analyse things that rock and roll around in his head, but he's still fairly conscious of _not_ thinking about them.

But what's got him slipping from highs to lows, eating at his nerves and slumping his shoulders, he honestly has no idea. He feels unsettled and out of sorts, and everything he looks at is coming through that filter. It's depressing and emo and he doesn't like that he can't shake it. Generally speaking he likes his artistic bouts of depression to be deliberate forays into the accessing of dark emotions. Days of woe and misery and snappish behaviour that only his mother would recognise from teenage years gone by put on like a familiar coat when a little release is required. A little petulance wallowed in for the sake of appreciating the rest. This though, is not deliberate.

And frankly, it's beginning to piss him off.

He'd wandered the gardens of the monastery, sat in quiet cavernous rooms, avoided eye contact and eaten food that, well, food was a generous way to describe it. He'd scribbled in journals and burned the pages in acts of catharsis. He befriended the monastery's marmalade cat. Refused to talk to it when it rubbed up against his shins and pressed a fingertip to its nose when it mewled in a broken sort of way, because rules were rules after all, but he'd snuck it bits of cheese from the dinner table in apology. He mused on the nature of world domination and excess and happiness and all kinds of things Nietzsche would have had problems with.

It should have let his mind unwind, soothed his jangled nerves and uncertain heart. Rejuvenated his _joie de vivre_. But it didn't. And that unnerves him more than anything.

His mood isn't being helped any by the gnawing hunger in his stomach, mind. He'd gone with a no frills airline to save a little money; by habit more than anything else given that he finally had enough money in the bank to relax a little bit. It meant no food was going to be forthcoming, even if they wouldn't serve anything until they were in the damned air. Sure, he could spend an exorbitant amount of money on a minuscule bag of peanuts, but really, even his hungry stomach won't allow him to just throw money away, although he can afford it.

Misha eyes the plump child next to him as it waves the lollipop around in a dangerous curve of sugary stain.

He wonders what it says about him that he'd sooner consider stealing candy from a baby than pay ten dollars for peanuts.

Probably nothing good.

Biting back a sigh, he turns his gaze out the window and tries to ignore the chatter of increasingly irate passengers around him as he watches the sun shimmer off the tarmac in waves of heat. After two weeks of nothing but his own head, the noises seem sharper and more insidious, ricocheting around his cranium and settling an ache down in the base of his skull. It's all a little too much.

Idly getting his phone out, he taps around the internet for a few, thinks about twitter and in a rare fit of sanity thinks better of twittering his snark out into the world. Which should be a clue as to just how not right he's feeling.

When he gets back to LAX he was planning to just catch a cab, or if there's a wait, the bus. He used to have half the bus routes in LA committed to memory from rambling excursions, auditions and general life. It alarms him that he can't even bring to mind the number of the route he'd get from the airport back to home. When did he lose that?

Fuck it. It's too much and too hard and though it pains him to do it, he finds himself bringing up Jensen's number, sending a text.

 _misha collins: up wall. candy from bb. taxi = can't be fucked. send driver prty pls? wn645 mci to lax 5:23._

Jensen's driver, and Misha can't even believe that he has something as celebri-bratty as a 'driver,' is actually a pretty good one. Punctual, discrete, quiet. It's the quiet that Misha is focusing on right now. God help him but he doesn't think he can handle having to make small talk with a chatty cab driver. Not after the almost four hours he's going to have to be in the air in a small enclosed cabin of sheer noise. And that's assuming they actually take off sometime in the next century.

His phone vibrates in his hand and the screen lights up with the blue bubble of Jensen's answering text.

 _jensen ackles: no worries. consider it organised. safe flying and don't eat any babies._

Misha follows through on the sigh this time, relieved that he has one less thing to think about. Plugging his earphones into his iphone he selects music at random and leans back into the seat, wills the time to snap and bend and deliver him to Los Angeles before he can blink.

Somehow, as a cherry-flavoured candy is brought down on his knuckles followed by a delighted high-pitch laugh and a frazzled "David!", he doesn't think it will.

 

* * *

 

Exiting the main terminal Misha heads straight for the outside world. All he has is a duffel with his now dirty clothes so there was no need to check any luggage, no need to jostle at the carousel or scrutinize each bag to make sure it was really his. His nerves feel even more frayed, tension jangling down his spine with each step closer to freedom. 'David' had not behaved himself on the flight. And while normally he might try and engage the little human in riddles and puzzles, teach him the importance of a liberal education or celery or some such nonsense, the red sticky film covering his jeans and sleeve had made him disinclined to play nice.

Instead he'd glared at the mother, who it turned out was fairly immune to death glares from random surly strangers given she was dealing with a bratty kid and baby and traveling on her own. She'd just shrugged, what am I going to do?, and turned back to trying to get the baby, currently whimpering on the verge of bawling, to feed. Consequently, the last 3 and half hours Misha would really really like to forget. Or possibly drown in a haze of alcohol.

The light of Los Angeles is bright, even in the wavering afternoon sun, a solid wall of white encroaches into the gloom inside. Misha shields his eyes with a cupped palm, gaze searching for the black town car and suited driver.

He can't see it, or him, and he can already feel his blood pressure nudging up a notch when he glances right once more and sees Jensen instead, leaning casually against his dark blue SUV in the pick-up/drop-off lane.

Not what he was expecting.

What the hell? The idea was for someone to pick him up so that he _didn't_ have to interact. He can already feel his inner brat aching to lash out and wound, despite the fact that all that has happened is that someone has done him a favour. It wasn't one he asked for.

Misha carefully schools his face into poker blank, smiles tightly as he approaches. Jensen's smile is wide and lazy in comparison.

"Hey," Misha says when he's close enough for Jensen to hear. "What happened to your guy?"

Jensen shrugs lightly, still smiling. He pushes off the car and offers out a hand to take the bag slung across Misha's shoulder. "Had another engagement, thought I'd save him the trouble of calling around. How was your trip?"

"Um, yeah good," Misha says, momentarily thrown by the change in plans. He lets Jensen take his bag, watches him throw it in the back seat and open the drivers side door. With a shake to bring himself back to reality - because really, Jensen picking him up is not something that should fucking throw him - he steps forward, opens the car door and hitches himself up into the seat.

Jensen pulls out into the stream of cabs and traffic inching towards the exit, fumbles in the glove compartment and pulls out a pair of sunglasses to slip on. Misha wishes he had his with him.

"You really didn't have to pick me up. I would have gotten a cab."

Jensen snorts, glances at him but Misha can't tell what his expression is beneath the mirror of the lenses. "And have your pretty ass all pissy at me for the whole summer?"

Misha lets his lip curl in a wry smile. "So really, it was just because you're a selfish prick who doesn't have Jared as entertainment for the summer?"

This time Jensen grins. "Pretty much."

"Lucky me," Misha retorts, does a passable job at keeping the sarcasm out of his tone. He turns his gaze out the window, watches the industrial wasteland blur past the window. Welcome to LA.

He waits for Jensen to say something. Defend considering Misha a bff-sidekick-replacement while Jared tours the Andes or Vesuvius or whatever the fuck he was doing. Question him further about the trip. Start yammering on about the latest call from Jared or, fuck, talk about how he separates his lights from his darks for all Misha knows. He really doesn't give a crap what the talk is, he just knows he doesn't want to do it.

But strangely, Jensen remains silent. And it's not even uncomfortable. Jensen seems happy to play chauffeur, navigate the freeways and smog, happily eating up the road, one hand on the wheel, fingers tapping lightly, the other resting loosely on the gearshift.

Misha's surprised, and kind of grateful.

He leans his head back against the headrest and dozes in the afternoon sun.

When he blinks his eyes open again he's outside his own house and Jensen's hand is warm on his wrist, softly waking him with a tap.

"Go get some rest, man. You look beat," Jensen says gently. His sunglasses have migrated to the top of his head and Jensen's eyes are a dark olive in the fading light.

Misha can only nod in agreement, he reaches between the seats and hauls his bag over.

Tugging the door handle open though he pauses, blinks sleepily at Jensen, back-lit by the orange-tinged smog sunset. He gestures with a wave at the steering wheel. "Thanks for the ride. Sorry I went narcoleptic on you."

Jensen smiles, doesn't seem in the least bit put out. "Hey, you needed a lift, not a sparring partner."

Misha wipes a hand down over his mouth, tries to pull alertness into his fading muscles. "Still... appreciate it."

He nods one last time and unfolds himself out of the car, watches as Jensen reverses back into the street, one arm over the passenger seat as he twists for a better view. It's not until the brake lights slow at the end of Misha's street that he realises he's still standing there, watching Jensen leave.

 

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

Three days later and Misha still hasn't shaken the weird feeling in the pit of his stomach. Something is wrong and apparently his subconscious has no intention of cluing him in.

He's started at least a half-dozen projects and as many books, but he has no patience for any of them. The pile of junk he pulled from the closet with every intention of sorting and taking to Goodwill remains in the corner of his bedroom where he pushed it in frustration. Maps of the Los Angeles area lie unfolded and scattered over the living room floor where he gave up plotting a hiking escapade. Vegetables from the farmers market began their slow march to decay in the fridge after he lost the will to cook them into an epic vegetable lasagna.

He'd managed to clean the terrarium, at least. Although that had only gotten him his fingers snapped at for the trouble. Turtles had no sense of fucking gratitude. Terrapins, man.

It's when he's standing in the lounge room, actively contemplating just plonking himself down on the couch and doing _nothing_ , or even worse, buying a fucking _television_ , that he finally gets sick of himself, weird mood be damned.

He heads back into the bedroom, sidestepping the weird assortment of sports equipment, art supplies and strangely disturbing fan-given pony collection, and finds a pair of shorts from what's left of the clothes quotient. Pulls them on and slips out of the sweater he's wearing to leave just his ratty old gray UC t-shirt. One sneaker he finds underneath the bed, but it takes a brief re-arrange of mess to locate the other under an errant lacrosse stick that he didn't even know he possessed until two days ago.

He likes to run. It's his thing. Jared and Jen can have their ridiculous custom gym follow them around on set, but Misha isn't about to set foot in it anymore than he's gonna hire a personal trainer to the stars. Or a bodyguard. Or a stylist.

He's done just fine without such things for 34 years, and a good portion of those years with a great deal less, like houses or money, for example. And there's just no good way he'll ever be able to justify having someone pick out his fucking shirts for him. Even if he only has about five.

What you can do, rich or poor, is run. And so he runs.

Locking the door behind him and slipping the key into his sock, Misha makes his way out into the unseasonably chilled Los Angeles air. He heads north in the direction of the Santa Monica mountains, starting out at a walk and then easing into a slight jog. The pavement is jarring under his feet, hard and unforgiving despite the spattering of pine needles, but even that begins to fade as he lets the calming influence of the repetition soothe him.

The world narrows down to step after step, the crunch of gravel. His breathing sucking in and bursting out. The burn of his muscles as they stretch up his calves and thighs.

It allows him to just _be_.

Beside him houses begin to blur out of focus as his mind focuses inwards. It'd be awesome if he could just reach in and rearrange some shit. Move some piles of detritus, clear out some old crap, do a bit of light dusting. Unfortunately, he's fairly sure it'd be about as useful as the closet cleaning had been the other day. Though possibly his brain matter wouldn't end up all over the floor.

There may also be fewer ponies.

Or maybe not.

The air is cool on his skin, washing away the heat of sweat that threatens to break. He can feel the tension loosen its grip on his lungs as the streets turn into other streets. The slow ache of tiredness threatening to overwhelm, to draw him to little more than a crawl, but he pushes on, ignores it and leaves it behind until nothing is left but the nirvana of nothingness. Freedom.

The thing about running, Misha long ago learned, is that it requires nothing but time, and while it accomplished little tangible, it was head and shoulders above doing nothing with the same time. And so he could do it and not feel guilty about putting aside the chore of conquering the world.

He lets his mind wander, swim in the emotions that have been plaguing him in the hopes that a 'why' will come to the forefront. Nothing is forthcoming, but it does pull into focus the fact that something is making him antsy. Being back in LA helps, being home. And maybe that's all it is, just an epic case of homesickness.

It's not something he's had to deal with before, despite spending the majority of his childhood in the north east, they never really had a 'home' as such. Just a series of houses and apartments they lived in, and for a little while, a car. It was always new, and never _his_. Schools were always changing with the locale, and so even finding his own _people_ wasn't easy. Being the class-clown helped of course. Meant that people gravitated toward you rather than away, or at the very least, put up with you out of entertainment value.

But really, it wasn't until he moved to LA that he felt like he'd found somewhere that was his. A whole city of class clowns. Artists and poets, strangers and vagrants, wanderers, hippies, idealists, pessimists, creators and the clinically insane. His kind of people. People with stories and dreams. And it was glorious.

Every time he's away, it feels just a little bit better to be home again. The irony isn't lost on him that the one time he gets his creative big break, filming Supernatural, it's away from his city of creation. And if he's honest? He resents it. Just a little bit.

Perched up high on horizon of the hills to his left the Hollywood sign glints in the early morning light. It’s an absurd sight, the giant white lettering in the midst of the mountain, so incongruously unnatural that he quite adores it. Labelling a mountain in the name of superficiality. Often he focuses on the sign as he jogs up and down the hilly terrain, lets himself muse on the nature of celebrity and production, the history, the future. Art gone viral. Today he lets the sign slip from his gaze, focuses on the ground at his feet instead.

His shoes thud against the pavement rhythmically, catatonically, until he looks up and finds he's gone a couple miles without realising it and he loops around in a large circle through his patch of Los Angeles, cuts back past the golf course north of his house. Palms mix with Eucalypts and the grass is splotchy where the summer heat has bested it. Around him people run and bike and rollerblade with their dogs alongside. A couple practices Tai Chi under the shade of an old Oak, movements slow and graceful. A homeless man sleeps on a bench, covered in tattered robes.

He doesn't stop running until he's turning back onto his street, down the sidewalk and up the stairs to his front door, lungs heaving at the exertion and sweat running down the length of his spine, dipping under the band of his shorts and following his tailbone downwards. The house key is warm and sweaty where it's been pressing against his ankle.

Misha isn't in the door two feet when he hears the twin noises of the iphone default ringtone and the glassy purr of the phone as it vibrates against the top of his coffee table. The name that flashes up is "Jensen" and Misha can almost convince himself that the rigidity flooding back into his muscles has nothing to do with the person calling and everything to do with the outside world intruding. It's not like he knows he's wrong, either.

The heat of his thumb leaves a trail of quickly disappearing condensation when he swipes his thumb over the lock.

"Ackles. What's up?" He greets, tries to calm his breathing rather than huff into the phone.

"Hey," Jensen's voice comes back to him, warm and deep in his ear. "Get some sleep?"

Which was three days ago, and if he hadn't, he'd probably be in a coma by now, Misha thinks offhandedly, but whatever.

"Yeah, much better," he white lies, "Nothing like a bit of enforced sloth."

Jensen chuckles, "Right." There's a slight pause, and Misha can hear something clatter lightly in the background before Jensen continues. "So I forgot the other day, but I saw Eric last week and he gave me some stuff for you. Looks important. Did you want me to drop it off, or you wanna swing by and pick it up?"

Even Misha isn't a good enough actor to fool himself at the clench of mild tension that sweeps through him. He knows what the papers are. Eric indicated that they'd be coming before he left the set. Still, he didn't think he'd get them quite so soon.

Suddenly a lot of the weirdness his brain has been putting him through the last couple of weeks starts to slip into place. And the image that clarifies comes entirely out of left field.

Huh.

Misha realises that he's probably expected to answer Jensen's question, given that no one else is going to. "Oh. Sure. How about later this afternoon?"

"Sure. I'll be home. Dog-sitting the brats."

Misha is pretty sure that means Jensen is looking after Harley and Sadie. Or he has a pretty weird doll fetish. Either or.

"Anon, then."

Jensen replies in the affirmative and Misha ends the call, stares contemplatively at the screen until it blinks dark. Briefly, he considers just not turning up, or leaving the state, hell, the country, for a little bit of stress-relieving madness. Go treasure diving in Mexico or drink yak milk in Mongolia or something. Then he considers that he's being ridiculous, and no matter what the papers that await him are - and he's fairly sure he knows _exactly_ what they are - they aren't worth worrying about until he has them.

With a shake of his head he heads for the shower.

The turtles take no notice.

 

* * *

 

It takes him less than a half hour to get from his place to Jensen’s across town. The drive is pretty easy, which makes Misha wonder if it’s a weekend. He’s lost track of the days, not having anything to do in any of them. Not that acting is conducive to knowing the days of the week anyway. When you work some and not others with no recognizable pattern it just becomes easier to pay attention to whether you have to be up at 3am (whether he has to go to bed before 2) rather than whether tomorrow is Monday.

When he pulls into the drive of Jensen’s place, all palms and pillars and about three times the size of Misha’s place, even if still paltry by Hollywood standards, there’s already a battered truck in the drive next to Jensen’s SUV. He doesn't recognise it.

Jensen answers the door in jeans and a flannel shirt. Bare foot. His hair is flat and messy, Texas-chic. Country-rock music that Misha can’t identify swirls out around Jensen from inside.

“Hey, you’re here.” Jensen smiles, easy and wide, an expanse of white teeth on display. Time off suits him. Jensen is relaxed and it’s obvious. Gone are the dark circles that makeup has to cover on set, body posture lax and fluid.

It hits Misha, unbidden and unexpected, that Jensen is fucking attractive. Reminds him just why it was they hooked up all that time ago, when Misha was just new meat and Jensen not a co-star and thinking such things wasn’t fraught with politics.

Misha finds himself grinning in response, holds up the 6 pack of beer he picked up at the liquor store on the way over. “And I brought barley-based toxins to imbibe.”

Jensen’s smile broadens further, and he ushers Misha in with a warm hand on his shoulder. “In that case you are even _more_ welcome.”

“You just want me for my beer, don’t you?” Misha deadpans, follows Jensen into the house.

Jensen leads the way down the corridor, past the entry foyer and lounge. He glances over his shoulder and winks. “Your beer _and_ your body, Misha. Don’t ever forget your sex appeal. You’re very pretty too.”

Misha snorts. "Says the pretty boy himself."

"Takes one to know one," Jensen volleys back easily and it's perfectly junior high and a conversation that usually Jensen would have with Jared. Despite that, Misha thinks he could get to like this relaxed version of Jensen.

Jensen turns into the living room and Misha follows. Out the bay windows he can see Harley and Sadie sleeping in the shade of a massive oak, Harley's head resting on Sadie's side. Icarus is trotting around the garden sniffing and pouncing at things, oblivious to the heat.

Inside, a massive plasma screen TV and stereo system taking up an entire wall. It's the source of the music blasting through the house. And no wonder - the speaker setup is one of the nicest Misha's ever seen. It's new; apart from the fact that the surfaces gleam sleek and fingerprint free it also wasn't here last time he visited. He'd remember. He lets out a low whistle and Jensen laughs.

"What's the point working so fucking hard if you can't play with the proceeds?"

"Indeed," Misha says, though he isn't sure he agrees with the sentiment. Having pretty things is all well and good, but if you had no time to enjoy them anyway... "I won't even ask what this set you back."

"Less than Jared's corvette," Jensen shrugs.

Misha raises an eyebrow. "Probably less likely to kill you too."

Jensen nods, but his attention is elsewhere as he heads to the coffee table nestled in amongst the plush white couches and crouches down, starts rifling through a stack of mail and papers. Half way through the pile he finds what he's looking for and pulls out an over-sized yellow envelope. Misha ignores the way his heart thumps as Jensen springs up and holds it out to him with a flourish. Across it is written "Misha Collins - Private and Confidential" in big black lettering.

"Courtesy of one Eric Kripke," Jensen says. "You know what it is?" Jensen asks, but the way he asks it tells Misha that Jensen's already guessed.

Misha shrugs, aims for nonchalant, as he takes it. He mutters thanks and stuffs it into the satchel slung over his shoulder that rests at his hip.

Jensen frowns and Misha fights the urge to reach forward and poke his forehead smooth again. "You are going to-" Jensen begins, then seems to think better of it, forces his features back into a smile. "Beer?"

"Thought you'd never ask," Misha says, because suddenly he's parched and in need of saying a giant adios to sobriety.

"Between you and Kane I may not get a fuckin' drop." Jensen rolls his eyes.

"As in Abel?" Misha asks with a raised eyebrow. He follows Jensen back to the main corridor and in the direction of where he thinks he remembers the kitchen being.

Jensen laughs. "As in Christian. You guys met, remember? At that convention wherever it was."

Which doesn't clear anything up, and Misha's shit at names so he just says _ah, yeah_ vaguely and hopes it wasn't one of the idiot Young Hollywood guys Jensen sometimes has a habit of hanging out with. All smart mouths and beanies and not a single brain cell between the lot of them.

The guy lounging over the newspaper at the long white marble bench that takes up most of Jensen's kitchen, long hair escaping from a messy ponytail, flannel shirt, jeans and bare feet, is way too scruffy to be the type though. Misha thinks he maybe remembers the guy, perhaps a passing intro at a noisy club one time? But Abel aside, he doesn't really remember him from Adam.

Jensen motions Misha towards one of the bar stools, takes the beer around behind the bench and slaps Chris lightly on the lower back to make room as he passes by to place the alcohol in the refrigerator.

Chris looks up, grins at Misha in a slightly disturbing predator meets prey flash of teeth. "Hey, man."

"Hey," is all Misha volunteers back.

Jensen pulls already cold beer from further back in the fridge, twisting off the caps and throwing them into the sink with metallic pings. "Chris, you remember Misha?" Jensen asks, hands the man a beer and slides the other over the counter to Misha.

The grin widens. "Not a fucking bit."

It catches Misha off guard and he laughs. "I'm not the only one with poor recognition skills," he says and takes a swig of the beer in his hand.

"My recognition skills are just fine," Chris drawls, strong Southern twang dripping out. "I remember the folks I need to." It comes with a wink.

Jensen snorts, finishes his mouthful and turns to Misha with sarcasm. "It's his alcohol consumption skills that need work. If he can't remember you then he was clearly smashed."

Misha's pretty sure there's a compliment in there, which is strange but amusing. He takes another mouthful of beer, feels it slide cold down his throat to his stomach. He settles into the stool he's perched on, quite happily prepared to watch Jensen and Chris bitch back and forth like at a tennis match.

Chris' eyes flash, but Misha reads humour. "Careful, boy. I can still whoop your pretty ass and have your momma thank me for it."

The eye-roll is exaggerated, but Jensen concedes ruefully. "Unfortunately, both those things are fucking true. Remind me again why I'm friends with your redneck ass?"

"I give fucking amazing head," Christian replies without missing a beat and Misha chokes on his beer like a teenage girl at her first luau.

Jensen is laughing, loud even over the spluttering, as Misha tries not to spit a lungful of beer over the bench. Generally speaking, Misha does not like to be laughed at - he prefers to be the one doing the laughing - but the low rumbling chuckle coming from Jensen's clear amusement is not mean-spirited. Much.

He wipes his mouth off with the back of his hand, pretty sure he's gone red, and shakes his head at the two of them. "Well that was embarrassing. People are going to start to think I can't handle my drink."

Chris grins around the mouth of his beer. "Or that you don't get good blowjobs."

"You can think that, if you want," he says nonchalantly but with a smirk. Attempts another swig of beer and this time manages not to hock it up over the company. "It won't be true, but you can think it."

"Oh, really," Chris leers, interest piqued, leans himself further onto his arms across the bench and spins his beer bottle around with his index finger.

Misha grins and says nothing. He knows that silence is the best form of tease, but he can't help but notice that now it's Jensen who has gone quiet, leaning against the sink watching them talk.

"Well, boy, don't be a cocktease. Do tell," Chris baits.

Misha smiles wryly, brings the bottle to his lips. "A gentleman never sucks and tells," he says and lets the cool glass rub against his lips for a split second - and he knows exactly how that looks - before tipping it up to get to the liquid.

Chris laughs so loud it echoes in the white confines of the kitchen. "Hell, I dunno why I don't remember you. I musta been fucking _four_ sheets to the wind."

"Told you," Jensen says matter-of-factly.

Misha finds himself oddly humbled that Jensen has been telling people that he's worth knowing. It's unexpected, to say the least. They're friends on set, absolutely, but Misha's never kidded himself that that means anything much other than trench camaraderie. Friendship is pretty similar no matter where you are: good as long as it's there but not missed if it falls from your field of vision long enough.

Maybe it's more than that, though. He finds himself smiling at the thought.

"In that case, Misha," Chris says, pulling his name out like taffy, "you have to come to the gig Saturday after next."

"Sure," Misha nods amicably, though he isn't sure what the gig is, exactly. He knows Jensen has lots of musical friends, but keeping them all sorted out was never his thing.

"Done deal." Chris nods, all bets final. "Starts at 8.30. The Hotel Café. See if you can get pretty-boy here to leave the house without something pussyish on."

"Pussyish?" Misha queries over Jensen's annoyed objections. It doesn't enter his head to wonder why he'd have anything to do with getting Jensen to leave the house.

"Pink. Shiny. Gelled. Fucking Hollywood."

Jensen steps forward and cuffs Chris across the back of the head. "Just because you can't pull off metrosexual, bitch."

"Metrosexual my ass," Chris snipes, "you just don't want your little fan parade to catch you without your hair done. Afraid they won't wet their panties for you anymore."

"Classy," Jensen observes, deadpan.

"My middle name," Chris says and pats himself Tarzan-like on the chest. He turns back to Misha, faux serious, "My boy here is all above his raisin'. Money and fame gone clear to his head. You though- " Chris pauses, looks Misha up and down with a slow smolder that is only slightly less effective for the table cutting his view in half, "...seem normal. See if you can't bring him back down to size. I sure as hell haven't had any luck."

Misha snorts, "Well I don't see why you think I'll have any more success."

Chris just grins. "No?"

Which Misha doesn't even have a clue how to interpret and a glance at Jensen finds a blank mask, eyes boring into the back of Chris' head. When Chris himself glances back at Jensen, he must see more than the blank look Misha sees, because suddenly he's changing the subject. Something about baseball or football, or really, for all Misha knows, gymnastics. Whatever it is, it gets Jensen animated and vocal and back at the bench with them, so Misha just sips his beer and observes the interplay.

This Jensen is one he hasn't really seen before. Sure, the Texan came out every now and again on set, especially when he and Jared were beyond fucking tired, unable to open their mouths wide enough to roll consonants out.

Still though. This Jensen, the one kicking at Chris' denim-clad shinbone with a bare foot, hair messed up and clothes too large and faded to be anything but comfortable, laughing and drunk with flushed cheeks and dirty humour...is different. So very relaxed and non-guarded. It's intriguing.

Misha likes intriguing.

He ends up spending the remainder of the afternoon in varying degrees of drunkenness. The killer headache he knows he's going to have in the morning is a worry for then and not now. _Now,_ there is meat, cooked way too rare for his liking, and copious amounts of beer. Jensen loose and grinning, Chris talking shit, Misha telling stories that are so intricately invented even he has trouble keeping them straight. All in all, it's a pretty fucking awesome afternoon and Misha finds himself sliding into it like a warm bath after a long day, willfully ignoring the yellow envelope stuffed into his bag.

 

* * *

 

It's the next day, closer to dinner than breakfast given the earlier state of his head, when Misha pulls the envelope out of his satchel. After he finds it that is, dumped inside the door to the spare bedroom for some unknown drunken reason.

He slides his finger under the not-so-tacky gum of the flap, opens the envelope in a jerky back and forth.

It is of course what he knew it would be: His contract renewal for Season Six. And Seven.

Briefly, he thinks about taking the pen off the table and scrawling his signature across the lines marked by neon 'sign here' stickers, taking it down to the post box on the corner and sending it back. Done, decided, and over with. But something won't let him pick up the pen. The same something that he realises has been tying him in knots for the last few weeks.

Because when it comes down to it, he doesn't actually know that he _wants_ to sign.

And all at once the thought makes him feel nauseous and ungrateful.

Who the fuck is he to turn down the opportunity he's been wanting since he started this acting lark? When it gets handed to him on a fucking gold platter, or at the very least, a golden envelope, why should he think he can even contemplate turning it down? After all those years when he had next to nothing, wanted nothing more than enough money for rent and food.

He fucking loves working on the show. He isn't lying when he says that it's the best set he's ever worked on. Jared's constant farting and fucking around aside.

But somewhere down deep he knows that signing these pieces of paper is going to seal his fate. It's the deal breaker; his career. Right there in black and white. And he isn't sure he fucking wants it. Doesn't want to turn into someone who buys a flashy car or a sound system just because he can. He spent time living in a fucking car, for Christ's sake, and it weren't no Corvette. In the back of his mind, he's always assumed he'll be a starving artist; an out of work actor who picks up commercials here and there, maybe a one liner or two, but spend his days eking out an existence fulfilled more on his whims than his wallet.

To sign these papers feels like signing away his soul, proclaiming himself 'actor' and 'Hollywood' and, when he digs down deep enough, 'sell out'.

It doesn't matter that it's illogical.

Feeling the need to get out and run the confusion away, he leaves the papers, unsigned, on the kitchen table. The table that he built with his own fucking hands because he wanted it to be real, to mean something. And because he didn't have the money at the time to buy a new one.

 

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

The contract remains unsigned for days, burning a metaphorical hole in Misha's table. He's okay with leaving it there, as it turns out. And as Eric hasn't called to inquire yet, though Misha is under no illusion that he won't, he figures he's got a least a few more days to stew unhappily over them. Maybe a week, tops.

He has always found that he does his best thinking when he's not doing much at all. Generally, life-changing decisions are best left to life to decide and human interference just makes things messy.

When he was interning at the place that he doesn't like to name anymore, surrounded by bitchy politicians and star-struck staffers, he knew, deep in his gut, that it wasn't going to be for him. Changing the world, it had seemed, was not done where people traditionally thought it was. Still, it had been a big decision. When his internship was up he could easily have stayed on. He was smart enough, popular enough - and wasn't that just the most ironic thing ever - to have been offered an actual position.

But the best and the brightest turned out to be kinda vacuous and moronic. So he'd known that it wasn't going to work out, that he was going to abandon that particular life's ambition and follow some other path. Yet at the time, even contemplating something like giving up the freakin' White House was one of those things that he was fairly sure had deserved what people called 'serious thought'. Problem was, every time he tried to think about it, he started to feel ill. So he just didn't. Put the decision off, day after day, week after week, until when the hour came and he had to make the decision whether to stay or go, it turned out he'd already made it.

His subconscious is sometimes awesome like that.

Clearly, therefore, when faced with a moral and financial decision of the same magnitude, and probably the same amount of moronicness and vacuity, he needs to stop thinking. And at least knowing what it is that he's meant to _not_ be thinking about helps. It doesn't stop the occasional roiling feeling in his stomach, but at least he knows he can ignore it. Unlike the itchy unsettled feeling he's been dealing with in the interim.

On the sixth day after he comes back from the monastery, he decides he needs to flex his creative muscles and so he calls a few of his crazier Los Angeles friends and before he knows it he has a whole posse of people meeting in the park to make _something_. He doesn't know what, exactly, but he knows it will be an adventure and that's all he ever really asks for.

He's about to head out, late morning, a basket full of possibly useful things he's picked up off the floor and from various cupboards - paper, plastic, glue, sparkles, rope - when his phone starts mocking him from the coffee table in an apparent attempt at deja-vu. It's Jensen again.

"We have to stop meeting like this," Misha says by way of greeting.

"True enough," Jensen replies with a chuckle. "So...what are you up to?"

Misha juggles a roll of cling-wrap from the kitchen drawer that sticks when it isn't opened at just the wrong angle. The basket is over his elbow and he tries not to drop the phone.

"Did you call to ask me what I'm wearing, Jensen?"

Because seriously, since when does Jensen call to just _chat_?

Misha's brain supplies unhelpfully: _since his best friend buggered off and got married, and now you're the default option_.

He ignores his brain, as is often wise.

Jensen's laughing in his ear, and Misha can't help the smile that tugs at the corners of his mouth at the sound.

"I'd say yes but you'd tell me it was something see-through and frilly and scar me for life."

Misha snorts, "Or I'd tell you I was naked." He roots around in another drawer looking for scissors and tape. He knows he had ample quantities of both, once.

Jensen makes a huffing noise that Misha can't quite decipher. He stops his searching for a moment and tries to focus on the call.

"But actually," Jensen says after a pause, "I'm bored out of my fucking skull here. Thought you might want to catch a movie or something?"

"Are you asking me out on a playdate, Jen? You really must be bored."

The chuckle he hears is warm, but soft. Misha decides to take pity on him. "I can't do a movie right now, as I have epic shenanigans to get up to. But maybe tomorrow or something?"

Jensen ignores the peace offering and focuses on the rest, "What kind of shenanigans?"

"The usual," Misha answers. He knows its cryptic, but he also knows how outside people usually react to the shit he gets up to. He's in no mood to be laughed at today.

"Ah..." Jensen says and there's that awkward pause again.

Misha bites his lip. He knows what he's about to do, even as he know's it's an epically bad idea.

 _Fuck it._

"Do you want to come along?"

"Seriously?" Jensen sounds curious.

He shrugs, forgetting that Jensen can't see him. "It's probably going to be a bunch of hippies and English Lit majors sitting around making macrame or some such shit. I imagine it will bore you to Dean's one perfect tear. But if you want..."

He leaves it open, deliberately. And truthfully, he kind of hopes that Jensen will beg off. Tell him he's just thought of something he absolutely has to do right this minute, like iron his socks or something. He wants to _make_ shit today. Not play nice or be on good behaviour.

But then Jensen asks him when and where and he finds himself giving the address in Griffith Park and telling him to bring whatever he thinks might be useful for taking over the world. If Jensen sits around moping or makes fun of the rag tag group of people who will turn up, invited or not, then Misha is going to be absolutely fucking pissed.

 

* * *

 

As it turns out, he has no need to be.

They've garnered a small army by the time Jensen turns up. Only a couple of whom Misha even knows, but he's good with that. Adores the fact that by virtue of coloured paper and a pile of odd junk they can attract similar souls from all through LA like a homing beacon for creativity.

They're littering a corner of the picnic ground, blankets strewn and people chattering, cutting paper, sewing things together. The perimeter of the group is a wasteland of bicycles, abandoned boxes and bags., their erstwhile contents - an assortment of materials and paints, metals and wood - cluttering the space in amongst the ill-formed circle.

Misha himself is knee deep in tissue paper and a kind of homemade glue - flavoured with glitter - a fair deal of which seems to have migrated to his hair. He's talking to a pretty redhead girl he knows he has no hope of remembering the name of. He's pretty sure though that it was something to do with the weather. They're chatting about the nature of lipstick feminism in the current era and how it relates to metrosexuality when Jensen approaches across the lawn.

He has an armful of green plastic garbage bags and what might be rolls of cardboard, his impressive SLR camera strapped over his shoulder. Proving that Misha really doesn't know Jensen at all as much as he thinks he did, Jensen walks up with a grin.

"Hey. I wasn't sure what to bring so I grabbed the first things that came to hand."

Misha finds himself grinning in return, drying bits of glitter-glue pulling taut against his wrists and the back of his hands as he reaches out to clap Jensen's shoulder in greeting.

"Awesome. That's perfect actually," he adds, surveying the mess of craft materials littering the grass. "We needed something sturdy to build over."

Jensen drops his bundle of materials in a spare patch of grass to be pounced on like live bait in a shark tank, and Misha watches him glancing around, can practically see the cogs turning in his head.

"And you're making what, exactly?"

There's no judgement there, so far as he can tell anyway, only curiosity, and Misha realises that Jensen coming along might not turn out to be a bad thing at all.

"Hot air balloon."

Jensen turns to him, eyes slightly wider, clear excitement showing on his face. "Will it work?"

Misha just stares at him askance. "Are you serious? Of course it will."

A blonde girl, he thinks she was called Megan, pipes up from across the group. "Misha won't let us go home until it flies."

Laughter greets her proclamation and so Misha can only answer one way: dictatorially. "That's right. So you better all get with the program. Sew those fingers to bloody nubs."

Jensen laughs and pulls his camera around his shoulder to his chest. "I see you're the same megalomaniac in the real world as you are on set."

Misha cocks his head, aware as he does that it's pretty reminiscent of Castiel-confused. "Who else would I be?" he asks, genuinely interested in Jensen's answer.

Jensen shakes his head, bemused. "Sometimes Misha, I just don't know about you. You have more masks than the rest of us combined, and yet you act like it's all just you."

Which kind of dumbfounds him. He's put Jensen down as many things, but acutely perceptive isn't one of them.

Jensen doesn't notice Misha's sudden lack of language though, busy flicking switches on his camera and twisting the lens into focus. "I thought I'd do some photography, capture some of the mayhem, if that's cool?" He turns to Misha expectantly.

"Um.. yeah. That's fine. Snap away, Cecil."

And Jensen is off, introducing himself to the rag tag bunch of artists and friends of friends, quietly clicking off photos and changing lenses. Misha goes back to his glue making process and discussing the new humanist manifesto with Rain... or Blizzard?

Maybe it's 'Sudden Downpour'...

He wonders what her last name is, something boring probably, like 'Smith' or 'Jones'. Sudden Downpour Jones. Now there's a name for a baby. Much better than 'Castiel'.

 

* * *

 

He'd almost be willing to say he forgets about Jensen being there in particular. If that is, he wasn't keenly aware that his eyes follow Jensen around the group the whole afternoon. Jensen isn't shy or retiring, not reserved the way he is around fans or serious the way he is when acting. He isn't even the goofy four year old or harangued single mother that Jared vacillates between necessitating of him. At various stages Misha watches him laughing with a woman who's sewing pieces of tissue paper together in a colourful wall of autumnal browns. Showing someone's little kid how his camera works and letting him take photos, sitting quietly with Mr Suzuki, one of Misha's elderly but young-at-heart neighbours and talking intensely.

In two weeks and as many meetings he's seen sides of Jensen he didn't even realise Jensen had. Which is ridiculous and pretty superficial of him really, to assume that the one side of Jensen he sees every day on set is the sum total of his being. And yet, he sort of has.

It isn't even a bad side that he sees everyday, bar the occasional actorly flounce or that one time they don't ever acknowledge. Jensen is a great guy, he's kind and thoughtful and takes his craft just as seriously as Misha does. In terms of acting, Misha gives Jensen his due, the man is good. They've become friends, slowly. Hanging out on set, catching a beer with Jared after work. Laughing and joking and mucking around. Backing each other up when Jared won't leave either of them alone long enough to get a good take. Generally speaking, he really likes Jensen.

But apparently, he doesn't even know him.

As Misha sews large banana leaves with thick twine, using a ridiculously large needle that keeps pricking his fingertips, the thought makes him wonder about things that never were. They've never talked about that night. He's always assumed Jensen thought it was a mistake, or that it was just a _thing_ \- both of them there in the right place at the right time. Or hell, maybe it _was_ just Jensen seeing and taking because he could. It's not something Misha condones, but he was just as willing to let Jensen take at the time, and so he doesn't think he can fault him for it. Even if he does judge, just a bit.

Truth be told, Misha thinks that if Jensen had turned up that next morning, caught his eye or pulled him aside for something more, he probably would have gone for it. But Jensen didn't and so neither did Misha. Especially since he was the new guy on set, only meant for a couple of weeks, and fucking that up was not a good idea. And once he'd gotten over the fact that maybe, just maybe, Jensen was occasionally _that_ guy, he brushed it away.

Clearly Jensen wasn't, and isn't, interested in a repeat, or 'more'. He hasn't even thought about it much since, really. Except for the random, and in Misha's mind, entirely appropriate, thoughts about just how fucking pretty Jensen could be. How pretty that mouth would look wrapped around Misha's fingers, or his cock.

The thoughts are harmless and un-acted on, and he's never one to deny a thought that has no bearing on reality, no possible way to cause harm.

Still. He's watching the afternoon light settle over Jensen where he's kneeling in the grass, holding down the corner of a sheet while Monsoon Season the stiletto feminist (she'd been upgraded) smooths it out and joins it up with the piece held by the dreadlocked guy that they'd acquired after lunch. Jensen's eyes are crinkling in amusement, dark stubble he's left haphazard scruffing his cheeks and throat. He's tanned from the LA sun and the long-sleeved t-shirt is old and well-worn, clinging to the lean muscles of his arms.

He's always known he'd fuck Jensen again, given the chance. He's only human after all. But it's never really occurred to him that maybe he might like to see if there's anything else past simple sexual attraction there.

Until now.

 

* * *

 

It's late in the evening, dusk falling, when they finally assemble the various sheets of tissue paper and plastic into something resembling a balloonish shape. Heavy on the 'ish'. Jensen stands back from the group, camera to his eye, palm wrapped around the lens and index finger on the shutter button.

Misha lets the more engineeringly inclined in the group figure out how to rig up a bottle of something flammable to remote control and instead slips further into the dark, sliding up next to Jensen. His cheeks and nose are radiating heat where he's slightly sunburned, and he's glad he wore a long-sleeve t-shirt despite the heat of the day

Jensen laughs as the group erupts into jeering disagreement at something. The chuckle is a low rumble that Misha feels under his ribs. Then Jensen's glancing sideways and catching Misha's eye. "Thanks for inviting me. I had fun."

Misha shrugs, unused to taking credit for merely inviting someone somewhere. "And I thought it was just a banana in your pocket."

Jensen laughs, knocks his shoulder against Misha's. "You live in a crazy-fucking world, but I like it."

"Me too," he says quietly, finds he doesn't have a sarcastic quip to add.

A cheer goes up at the same time as a flame bathes the faces of the group in a warm yellow hue. The balloon fills and actually rises, which is more than Misha thought it would. Makes it up about 20 feet, in fact, before the tissue paper catches fire and the balloon self-destructs in a ball of flash and burn to the laughing shrieks as everyone runs to escape falling debris.

Jensen captures it all in series, the soft insistent clicking of the shutter chattering to Misha's left.

The sunburn and the dropping temperature make Misha shiver, and he absolutely doesn't acknowledge that he leans in just a little closer to Jensen for warmth, in the dark. Ignores the fact that Jensen lets him.

 

* * *


	5. Chapter 5

Misha is sitting down to coffee, black and bitter, spreading the morning paper over the table, the still unsigned contract buried under newsprint and the smell of ink when Jensen calls for a third time.

It's only been a day since the park and he isn't expecting to hear from Jensen again so soon, but he can't deny that when he pulls the phone out from under the broadsheets he's not entirely upset at having his peaceful breakfast interrupted. Secretly, he's a little bit pleased.

"Mister Jensen," he answers, settles the phone into the palm of his hand, picks up the coffee cup in his other.

"Hi," Jensen says and he sounds sleepy and soft. It absolutely does not make Misha think about what Jensen might be like to wake up to. At all.

"Bored again?" he asks when nothing more seems to be forthcoming. He sips at his coffee carefully so as not to burn his tongue.

Jensen chuckles. "Not exactly, but I was wondering if you'd wanna come to a premiere thing I said I'd go to tonight. Last minute cancellation."

Misha licks coffee off his lip. He highly doubts that it's a 'last minute cancellation'. Much more likely is that Jensen can't find anyone else to go with given his other half being away. Still. It's the thought that counts.

He has to admit, he's kind of curious to see more of Jensen outside of filming and conventions. The glimpses he's had over the last couple of days are tantalizing, and he never could resist figuring out a new puzzle. Especially one he thought he'd placed the last piece in over a year ago. There is, as far as he's concerned, nothing sexier than being proven wrong when you're dead set sure you're right.

But there's no need to be mature about it.

"Couldn't get a prom date?"

"Fuck you, man," Jensen huffs, but there's no malice in it. "Thought it might be something you'd enjoy."

"You know Jensen, it'd be much easier if you just admitted that you wanted me. We could stop playing all the coy cat and mouse games," he says, holds his breath to see if the sarcasm plays or pierces.

"Funny, Collins. Funny. In or out?"

Misha grins; he's so totally in. "Pick me up. And if you're lucky I won't wear heels that make me taller than you."

"As long as you're wearing clothes, Misha? I'm not going to complain." Jensen's voice comes deadpan down the line.

Misha feels the laughter bubbling up his throat, silent but more genuine for it. "When do I need to be pretty by?"

"I'll swing by around 6. Oh and there's a thing afterwards that might be cool. See how we go."

Misha has no idea what such a thing might be, but he finds he agrees with the sentiment. They'll see how they go.

Disconnecting the call and swallowing down the last of his coffee, he folds up the newspaper and gives the contracts underneath a contemplative glance, a _maybe_ , before he heads to the bedroom to find his running gear. It's a fucking gorgeous morning out there and he damn well needs to be in it.

 

* * *

 

He's surprised when Jensen picks him up with a driver. As he slides into the backseat of the towncar next to him he remarks as such. Well okay, he may also put it in terms of prom dates and limos. Jensen just tells him to shut the hell up.

Which Misha can appreciate. He likes it when people don't let him get away with crap. As long as it remains novel and not _modus operandi_.

They chat on the short trip into the city, Jensen talking about his parents and siblings and the phone call he got while trying to get ready. The aversion of World War III.

Misha knows who all the players are, of course, it's not like Jensen doesn't talk about personal things on set. Still, something feels strangely different about the intimacy of the moment. And it takes Misha most of the car ride to realise that it's because he's hearing it unedited. Not the continuation of a story started with Jared, nor annotated by Jared himself - already in on the details as if they were his own family. And considering how long those two had been living in each other's pockets, Misha supposes they probably are.

A brief thought flits through his head that it's either awesome to be trusted with primary details or insulting to be substitute-Jared. He isn't sure which it is, evidence that his image of 'Jensen' has been severely fucked with in the last week and a bit. It's both intriguing and unsettling, so he pushes the thought away.

When they pull up outside of the Landmark's Regent Theatre in Westwood Misha is once again surprised. Firstly, that Jensen has effectively just done a huge circle around Los Angeles to pick him up and bring him back to his neck of the woods and secondly, that they aren't at some swanky red-carpet blockbuster event. If they're at the Regent then it's going to be something independent. Something artsy. Foreign. Something, in other words, that Misha might have a fair chance of enjoying.

The world premiere of Loot had been at the Regent, almost two years ago to the day, and Misha has always had a slight soft spot for it because of that.

It is however, a premiere, and so there is, in point of fact, a red carpet, but it's shallow and small, and the people Misha can see wandering up it are unknown. Not that he's very good at picking out celebrities anyway, he doesn't watch enough to memorize them and his facial recognition is screwed up enough that even if he does, he doesn't trust the name that flits past to match the image.

Still. He's fairly certain none of the people currently in his field of vision are a Brad or an Angelina. Not that it's stopping the small but persistent handful of photographers snapping away at anything that moves. In the land of celebrity it pays to shoot now, ask questions later. So to speak.

One of the least interesting parts of the ‘job’ as far as Misha is concerned is pandering to celebrity. And while he doesn't exactly like doing all the ridiculous publicity – he recognises it for what it is: a means to an end to get to things he does want to do – he pretty much feels it's intrusive and stupid. He can handle a red carpet, no sweat, he just obfuscates and charms. Doesn't mean he won't feel like a right moron at the end though.

Pulling his jacket straight, he falls into line beside Jensen as they make their way to the security guys and the cordon. Jensen pulls out tickets and they’re waved through with nothing more than a nod. Jensen’s been doing this much longer than he has, or at least, with a lot more recognition involved, and so Misha is expecting that he’ll at least do some of the rope line. He’s resigned himself to the fact.

But that isn’t what happens.

They’re only a few feet onto the carpet when Jensen looks up towards the front of the line and smiles broadly, teeth dazzling in the spotlights. He waves an enthusiastic greeting and with a quick glance back at Misha to make sure he’s following he heads quickly up the line, dodging behind the people currently ensnared like krill to the sea urchins of greedy reporters on the rocks. Misha keeps in step with Jensen, trying not to bump into people as they hurry towards whoever it is that Jensen’s seen at the end of the line.

He hears at least one reporter call out Jensen’s name, but Jensen just glances over with a promised “Be right back.” The guy calls again, but quickly turns to the fresh meat behind them.

When they reach the end of the carpeting, Jensen ducks in through the doors and the sudden darkness of the theatre lobby, quieter and less frenetic, despite the amount of people milling about. There’s no one waiting to catch up with them though. Jensen stops and turns to Misha, grinning.

“Old trick I learned from an anti-social friend once. Gets you through the line without being hassled or pissing off paparazzi.”

“Dude,” is all Misha can think to say, at once impressed and somewhat turned on by the devious turn Jensen’s nature has just taken.

Jensen winks. “You can thank me later. C’mon. Let’s get something to drink.”

 

* * *

 

The movie turns out to be pretty good, although Misha is sure that if someone asked him to recount the plot there’d be some pretty sizeable gaps in his rendition. It isn't that the movie is boring, far from it, it's heart wrenching and well-directed and the lead actress is extremely attractive in a non-Hollywood way and not at all bad at acting.

It's just that every now and again Misha’s attention wanders to Jensen sitting beside him. Perhaps more _again_ than _now_. The heat radiating off his thigh where it almost brushes his. The way his fingers curl over the arm rest and he grips tighter unconsciously in the sad parts. The way the movie light flickers in his eyes if Misha glances out of the corner of his own.

If it isn't for the thought that Jensen might snatch his hand back, Misha is almost tempted to try something. Maybe just run a finger down the outside seam of Jensen’s jeans or accidentally brush arms along the armrest.

He doesn’t though, because in the back of his head he’s pretty sure it would be unwanted. After all, if Jensen had been amenable to more than a quick fuck, well, he would have acted like it two years ago. If he’d wanted something more, there were 24 months in which he could have made a move, suggested that an advance wouldn’t be turned down.

He hadn’t.

So Misha keeps his hands to himself. He tries not to feel like a fool for even contemplating it. Though of course, if it weren't for the fact that Jensen _had_ been the one to drag him into his trailer and pull an orgasm out of him with nothing more than his hand on Misha’s cock, and mouth on his neck, well, he’s pretty sure he wouldn’t even be contemplating a repeat performance of the night right now either.

Whatever. If Jensen is going to be a dick about that then he certainly isn't going to be putting himself through the embarrassment a second time. A quick fuck is all well and good one time, but twice and he’d start to feel used.

When the credits roll and the lights come up, he’s almost convinced himself that he isn’t actually interested in Jensen anyway. Until he turns to say something and finds Jensen staring at him contemplatively, eyes shadowed and body angled toward him.

“What’d you think?” Jensen asks.

“Good,” Misha affirms, hopes Jensen doesn't quiz him on specifics.

Jensen smiles softly. “Worth being my prom date for a night?”

Misha laughs, “Yes. It was worth being your Sasquatch.”

Jensen’s brow furrows. “Jared?”

“I assume you’d normally be doing this stuff with Jared is all,” Misha says.

Jensen just looks at him, pauses a millisecond too long in which Misha thinks _shit_ though he doesn't even know why, before he says “No. Jared would never let me drag him to a movie like this. He’d never be able to sit still through it.”

“Oh,” Misha says. He doesn’t know what else _to_ say, senses that something has shifted, that somehow he’s said the wrong thing.

“You aren't the replacement, Misha,” Jensen says, turns away to stare at the credits still rolling on the screen.

“I just meant,” he begins, but Jensen turns back to him, smile suddenly in place and slightly wrong.

“Forget about it. I know what you meant. How about we go to the club?”

Misha wants to say no. It’s not his scene, it’s never been his scene and never will. But he knows he’s fucked up somewhere, though he can’t imagine how. And Jensen has already proven himself twice in the last three days, surely he deserves the benefit of the doubt?

Plus, he kind of wants to follow him. Just a little.

Misha nods. “Okay, sure.”

Jensen's smile widens, though it still seems to twist strangely. He pushes up out of his seat. “Awesome. Let’s get outta here.”

And so they do, Jensen walking on ahead quickly, Misha trailing a half step behind.

 

* * *


	6. Chapter 6

The driver pulls up outside a red-carpet that is much more active than the one at the premiere had been. They’re outside the Trousdale and Misha can already tell, although he isn’t sure that he’s actually heard of it before, that it’s one of the ‘it’ places right now.

The scantily dressed women lined up out the front, the burly bouncers with metal detectors and the haughty looking door-bitch, the row of limos and drivers lined up down the street. Yeah, Misha is pretty damn sure he isn’t going to enjoy this.

Fuck.

But Jensen is out of the car far too quickly to be anything approaching normal and Misha has to hustle to keep up. Jensen goes straight to the bouncers bypassing the line and half the people waiting bend and stretch to see who the person is that’s famous enough not to have to wait.

Misha doesn't have a problem using fame for things, as long as they're things he thinks he should get by virtue of being a human anyway. Respect, decency, manners. Sometimes being famous means the opportunity to remind people of those things. Celebrity that buys tables without reservations, entrances to parties, gift bags of gadgets for people able to afford them with couch change, has always seemed ridiculous. Even worse is the fame that buys consequential things, a voice when other people had none, money for people already most able to make it. No, Misha has never been squared away totally with the power of celebrity to get things above and beyond what an average human is entitled too.

Apparently, Jensen has no qualms with it.

Jensen leans in and says something to the woman standing behind the muscle in 5 inch heels and smaller than 5 inch strip of leather masquerading as a skirt, and by the time Misha catches up the ropes are being held aside and they’re up the stairs and through the heavy metal doors before the rope even latches behind them.

In the grand scheme of things, jumping a line to get into a mediocre club is not something that Misha is going to throw a fit about. He has no intention of standing in line, but then again, he would also rather skip the line and club both. The fact that Jensen doesn't even seem to question it though? That raises his hackles. Threads a feeling of disappointed resignation through his nerves in the way he hasn't felt around Jensen since they first met. And fucked.

And okay, he's being slightly ridiculous, letting it get to him when it's nothing at all worth caring about. But he's off-side and feeling like he pissed in someones cornflakes and he's not in the mood to be charitable.

Inside, it's fucking loud, a strong bass beating and pulling at the air around them. It’s dark and smoky, purple and green strobe lights swirling the packed dance floor. Misha appreciates music. He appreciates immersion in as such, getting high and existing in it, admiring the intricacies of it, _being_ in it. What's playing here, so loud that he thinks his ears might begin to bleed, is definitely _not_ music. Not by any standard Misha has, and he likes to think his standards are pretty loose. It’s syrupy and peppy in amongst some kind of gangster rap baseline. It may be Britney Freakin’ Spears.

Jensen barely looks back to see if Misha is still in tow before he’s off towards the packed bar, muscling through the crowds with a lascivious smile that would melt butter if given half the chance. It works, allows him to sidle straight up to the bar in seconds, girls and guys alike swooning away to giggle behind their hands. Misha hangs back, watches Jensen chatting up the girl behind the bar. Once again, he’s found another side of Jensen. This version is cocky and sure of himself, aware of his appeal and using it to full advantage. Gone is any trace of the reserved, 'hang back and wait guy' that Jensen usually is amongst strangers.

He turns and looks around the club, at the waifs dancing and the booths huddled in pools of shadow, holding celebrity and money and keeping it safe but on display. The epitome of what everyone else should aspire to, yearn for.

Jensen is back with two Corona’s in hand, limes sticking out of the necks.

“Fly problem?” Misha asks as he accepts the one offered to him. Wishing it were just about anything else. Wishing Jensen had actually asked what he wanted.

Jensen frowns at him, “What?”

Misha shakes his head. “The lime…you know what, never mind. It's not true anyway. So, why are we here again?”

Jensen shrugs but then looks around the room studiously. Halfway through the oscillation he grins and points into the far corner. “That’s why.”

Misha peers into the darkness but can’t make anything out. Turns out that isn’t a problem though when someone in the area stands up and yells “Ackles! Get your pretty ass over here!”

Jensen grins at Misha and then is off, threading through the dancers and drinkers and sweaty, scantily clad people, Misha struggling to keep up.

The corner is sectioned off, another VIP rope barring their way for all of two seconds before it’s lifted on their approach. The area is raised slightly away from the rest of the bar, something that reminds Misha of not being unlike a pedestal. Low velvety couches line the sides, cushions and coffee-tables scattered between. On the couches are an abundance of gorgeous young people. None of whom Misha knows.

Jensen is immediately enfolded in an immense bear hug by the guy Misha supposes is the one who yelled his name out. Manly back-slapping ensues. Misha stands back and tries not to feel like a prom date that just got ditched for the head cheerleader. Quarterback. Whatever.

“Fuck, Ackles. Haven’t seen you in a fucking age man, where the hell have you been?!” The guy grins, falling ass backwards into a corner couch in a lazy sprawl. Next to him is a blond guy, slumped back into the cushions, feet kicked out into the middle of the room, a petite redhead girl straddling him. Unsurprisingly, they're making out. Misha thinks _get a room_ before realising he just aged about 50 years.

“Vancouver.” Jensen deadpans in response. “Where the fuck you think I've been?”

The guy laughs like Jensen’s just said the funniest thing ever, slaps his knee and gropes for the abandoned beer bottle beside him. “Sit your ass down, fucker. And who’s your friend?”

It’s sneered lazily, perhaps meant to sound amused, and Misha takes an instant dislike. Jensen plonks down on the couch to the guy’s left. “This here is the angel Castiel, aka Misha Collins.”

Misha rolls his eyes, sits himself down on an ottoman in front of Jensen resignedly. The blond guy pulls himself out from underneath the girls lips, though not, Misha notes, from under her altogether. He stares at Misha, eyes hooded and dark in the low lighting, lips swollen obscenely. Misha thinks he recognises the guy, one of Jared's friends perhaps. He isn't sure.

“'Meeesha'?” the new guy questions in lieu of saying hello, rolls the name across his tongue in a purr. “Weird name.”

“Hollywood,” Misha replies blankly, takes a swig of the watery beer.

“True,” the guy grins, hands coming around the girl on his lap to fondle her ass. “Least you aren’t named ‘Apple’.”

“Yes,” Misha allows.

Jensen seems to realise he's been remiss at introductory duties and finally waves a hand back and forth between Misha and the guys. "Sorry, Mish," Jensen says, and Misha arches an eyebrow at the sudden nickname use. Jensen indicates the blond guy-girl combo, "You've met Chad right? Jay's friend? And this is Mike. Rosenbaum. From Smallville."

Apparently the girl currently octopussing Chad doesn't get a mention. Which Misha would be pissed off at if it weren't for the fact that she turns around and stares at him, glassy eyed and wet-lipped and pointedly doesn't bother to object to it.

"Ah," Misha replies, because he doesn't have anything else to say to the introductions. He vaguely remembers Jared going on about a Chad. As for Smallville. He's heard of the show, sure. But he doesn't really know what it's about. Let alone who stars in it.

"It's about Superman," Jensen adds, well aware that of Misha's many hobbies, watching television isn't one of them.

Rosenbaum lets out a low whistle. "Jesus. Where the fuck have you been the last ten years," he asks. Chad is sniggering next to him. Actually _sniggering_. Did people even fucking _do that?_

It's on the tip of his tongue to answer 'White House,' but somehow he doesn't think these guys would get the irony he'd say it with. "I don't watch television."

He knows the snippish answers are making him sound petulant. And kinda Amish. But he doesn't give a fuck really. The company's shit and the club is atrocious and he's wondering where the hell the nice evening he was having with Jensen has gone to crawl away and die.

Rosenbaum is laughing still. "You don't watch television, you just act on it?"

Misha shrugs and takes a long pull of his beer. Sooner he's finished the sooner he can skip out. Chad and the unnamed redhead have gone back to dry-humping in public.

Jensen leans into Rosenbaum conspiratorially, a hand placed on the guy's splayed knee. "Misha's a free spirit. He made a fucking hot air balloon the other day. In the park."

Misha glances sharply at Jensen, he knows he hasn't had enough to be even slightly tipsy, so whatever the hell is going on, it's deliberate. And shitty.

Rosenbaum's eyebrows rise in what Misha thinks looks like mocking condescension, but could be just surprise. Before he says anything though a blonde girl who had her back to them is whipping around and insinuating herself into the conversation.

"Really? A balloon? That is so fucking cool," she says, eyes sparkling under miles of eyeliner. She looks like a raccoon. She angles herself towards Misha, leaning down just enough that he gets an eyeful of her cleavage.

"Easy, girl," Rosenbaum grins. "Meeesha, here doesn't need your skank ass falling all over him before he's even finished a drink."

Her laugh is a trilling grate. "Shut up, Mike. You're such a fucking cunt."

Rosenbaum erupts into raucous laughter, clear over the noise of the god-awful thump of the music as it changes to something techno and equally horrid. Jensen laughs too.

Undeterred the blonde turns back to Misha. As do her breasts. "Seriously. A balloon? That's just so fucking random. I love it! I bet you write poetry and save whales and shit too, right?"

"He does," pipes up Jensen and when Misha turns to glare at him, because since when was Jensen fucking 22 and _a bitch_. Jensen at least has the decency to avoid Misha's gaze and guiltily suck down his beer.

Again, Misha finds himself shrugging. He's starting to feel like Marcel Marceau here. All he needs is some fucking face-paint. He's also never saved a whale in his life, nor intends to with any particular fervor, but he gets the point.

He doesn't do shit because it's cool or artsy. He does it because he can and he enjoys it. Somehow he doesn't think that shit will fly in this crowd. He suspects Jensen knew as much when he brought it up.

A flat-chested girl with a pixie cut and sparkly hot-pants comes bouncing in from the right, throws herself down next to Jensen and hooks her legs right up over his thighs, stilletod shoes coming to prod against Rosenbaum's legs. She looks familiar and Misha's fairly sure she's also an actor. There are still no introductions forthcoming of any of the females present.

"Hey, Jensen! Long time no see. How are you, babe?"

Jensen grins, arms coming up to encircle the girl. "Good. Better now you're here." He says it with a dirty wink and a growl in his voice and Misha thinks he just might throw up in his mouth. It's so stupidly put on as to be beneath Jensen. Far beneath.

Misha has no idea what's going on and he fucking hates it. Jensen has turned into some kind of celbribrat in front of him, drinking Corona and fondling the nearest piece of ass, hanging out with dicks and doing a pretty convincing job of being one himself. It doesn't gel with the quiet intense guy who was at the park with him, nor the relaxed happy one at his house.

There are puzzles and then there are fucking mind-games. And Misha's just about had enough of this; sitting up on a pedestal with undulating masses of pretty vacuity all around him. If Paris Hilton turns up, he's going to fucking kill himself. Or squeeze the lime in his eye.

The girl in Jensen's lap fucking _giggles_ as Jensen mouths at her neck, and the blonde is trying to catch Misha's eye, and Misha has _had it_. He's done. He stands up, leaves his half-drunk Corona on the table beside him.

Jensen looks up at him and for a second Misha sees something in them he can't pin down, some undefinable emotion that were he pressed, he might think was worry or confusion. But as is plainly obvious, he doesn't know Jensen. At all. So really, he has no business interpreting anything he thinks he might see.

"I'm off," he says to Jensen, voice clipped.

"So early?" Jensen asks, the girl in his arms forgotten and pouting about it.

"Yeah."

"Oh..." Jensen says, and looks like he's searching for something else to say, but Misha doesn't feel like waiting around. Not bothering to say goodbye to his new 'pals' he turns on his heel and extricates himself from people and celebrity, winds through the dance floor and through the velvet ropes and finds himself back out in the warm night air. The row of waiting hopefuls is still lined up outside staring at him as he leaves. Probably trying to figure out who the fuck he is.

He hopes they'll clue him in if they work it out.

 

* * *


	7. Chapter 7

It's late when the cab pulls up outside his house. Despite not staying at the club, the movie hadn't been short and the glowing red numbers on his bedside clock blink 2:17 at him as he enters his bedroom in the dark.

He strips his jacket off, slings it over the back of the ash rocking chair by the door he'd carved and warped into shape himself. The shirt he wears over his t-shirt ends up on the floor. As do his pants.

He considers a shower, the thought of hot water pounding down on his back and washing away the taste the night has left him with is pretty damn tempting. But he can't be fucked. Instead he flops down in the middle of his bed in t-shirt and boxers. He smells like stale cigarette smoke, which he hates, and his mouth tastes of cheap beer and lime.

Blankly, he stares up at the ceiling. Tries to process.

Mainly, he feels pretty damn stupid. Most of the time, he is pretty happy to go on first impressions. Granted, one could get first impressions really wrong. But Misha's always been pretty good at them, even if every so often it's necessary to re-write a little bit.

His first impression of Jensen was that he was shy, his second, that he was a bit of a dick, although one that gave a mean hand-job. After that night, he'd pretty much figured that it was a one off. An aberration to Jensen's normally level personality. Though to be entirely honest, Misha did also acknowledge that deep down, that night, as fucking hot as it was, still rubbed him the wrong way. So to speak.

It especially pisses him off now. The Jensen he'd seen in the last few days was different again. Picking him up at the airport for no reason other than to do Misha a favour was decidedly sweet. It was something family would do, a loved one, a friend. No, something a _good_ friend would do. For all they pal around on set, laugh and prank each other and enjoy filming, he's always assumed that it's friendship, sure, but nothing intimate. He wasn't at all surprised not to be invited to Jared's wedding, for example. And it didn't mean anything at all, except that he wasn't family. Which he wasn't.

And if anything, while most of his scenes had been with Jensen until the latter half of the year, it was Jared whom he fucked around with on set. By virtue, perhaps, of the fact that Jared fucked around with _everyone_ on set like a puppy on uppers, but it remained true. Jared was the boy that pulled the pigtails of the girl he liked because he didn't know how to express the fact that he cared.

Which makes Misha kind of sorry for Gen, come to think of it.

When he thinks about his own personality, it's Jared whom he resonates with the most. Outgoing, loud, willing to do ridiculous shit purely for the enjoyment value. Granted, he doesn't break as much fucking stuff as Jared does, but then, who does? Jared is hyper and insane and like a four year old who just got into his mother's makeup box, and Misha likes to think he's a bit more sardonic in his version of annoying brat than Jared's fart=hilarious version. Still. He appreciates fun-loving. It makes life worth living.

Misha sighs, counts the knots in the wood above his head and tries to feel sleepy. It isn't working.

Generally speaking, Misha doesn't do shy and retiring the way Jensen does. Or 'reserved' as Jensen likes to call it. It's never been his thing. Sure, sometimes he'll shut the hell up and watch, but that usually has more to do with being internally somewhere else than not wanting to engage externally for fear of judgement.

Which brings him back to the reason he feels like an idiot. Because over the last couple of weeks he finds he _has_ been empathising with Jensen much more. The relaxed Jensen he's seen at his home. The down to earth shit-kicking friends versus Jared's much more glittery scene-stealers like Chad. The Jensen that turned up to take photographs and the one that invited him to a movie that he knew Misha would like. That's a Jensen he can get on board with.

But now he doesn't even know which Jensen is the fucking real one. Perhaps the last few days have been an act. A mask. Shy and reserved meets creative and caring hiding the fact that, as Misha already fucking suspected and dismissed, Jensen was in fact a jerk.

Certainly tonight at the club was the worst version of Jensen he's had the misfortune of meeting. Was that the real Jensen? He doubts it. But then again, maybe it's the version that Jensen wishes he was. That he aspires to be. All money and plastic looks, paparazzi and no-name pussy.

And if so, it's a version that Misha has no intention of being around. If he had, then he'd be getting laid on a much more regular basis. Because damn, that one glimpse at Jensen as a lover, it had been enough.

Misha's cock certainly thinks so, as his thoughts slide back to that night two years ago, twitching interestedly inside his pants. There's no denying that Jensen is fucking hot. The stubbled jawline, muddy green-brown mix of his eyes, and pouty cupids-bow mouth. The slim lanky build and toned muscle look that Misha is instantly attracted to.

Idly, he wishes that their once and only _rendez-vous_ had happened in the daytime. Or at least with the fucking lights on so he could have seen what Jensen looked like, flushed and sweaty, lips swollen and wet. The way his face looked when he came down Misha's throat.

Misha groans, the noise loud in the quiet of his bedroom. It's clear where this is going and so he arches his hips up off the bed, slides his boxers down and kicks them off with his feet. His cock is already half hard, jutting up and away from him.

He wraps his hand around himself, hot heat and velvety hardness sliding in his palm. Let's his eyelids fall shut and loses himself in the feel of his hand tight and grounding. He allows his mind to wander back to that night in Jensen's trailer, the feel of Jensen's hand on him.

He shrugs up the mattress a little, folds his free arm under his head and gives himself a better angle. His cock is swelling in his hand, and he quickens his pace, allows his index finger to rub at the sensitive underside of the head, up and down the vein.

The most fucked up part about the whole mess of a night is that despite Jensen's behaviour, Misha is still flashing back to the way he had been slouched back against the dark velvet of the couch at the club. The way the lights from the dance floor had flashed across Jensen’s eyes, throwing glitter into the shadow. The way his mouth had wrapped around the neck of his beer bottle, come away shiny and wet and Jensen's Adam's apple had bobbed as he swallowed, skin taut over tendons.

He wants to be royally pissed at him. Hell, he _is_ fucking pissed at him, though he isn’t sure for what. For enjoying himself? Relaxing? Partaking of a pretty ass when it landed in his lap - literally? Having friends that weren’t as down to earth as Jared? Living up to a stereotype? Who fucking knows. Mainly, he’s probably just pissed that Jensen had him believing that a down to earth guy can remain so, despite the sway of material trappings and a bit of sparkle brought on by Hollywood. That Jensen was immune to the shit that Misha is sure will eventuate if he signs the contracts sitting under piles of stuff on his table. Instead Jensen has lived up to exactly what Misha thought he was back when they first met.

And yet, he still fucking finds him attractive enough to want to jerk off to thinking about him. Which makes him even more annoyed with himself. Misha growls, pulls at his cock harder, rougher, the traitor that it is. Glancing down he watches the sparsely haired skin at the base of his cock pull up with every stroke of his hand, slide back down again.

Fuck it.

He goes all in, lets the confused thoughts and anger and embarrassment at having been wrong swirl through him as nothing but a wave of emotion. His hand tight on his cock, sliding, squeezing, shivering pleasure down into his gut. Pre-come begins to bead at the head and he swipes it down himself with the pad of his thumb. Allows his cock to bob free for a moment to slide his now sticky fingers down further, massage gentle-rough at his balls.

The pressure begins to build and push between his legs, and he digs his toes into the sheets of his bed, slides his hand back up over his cock and lets his hand gentle, the grip loosening as the sensitive skin becomes too skittery for full pressure. His fingers wrap in a loose sheath and he fucks up into it, muscles bunching along the back of his legs, tightening in his ass.

His breath is stuttering, quietly gasping into the silence and he bites back a moan as he feels his orgasm build, slides his arm out from beneath his head and pinches roughly at the hard bud of a nipple through his t-shirt and instantly he’s coming in thick spurts, splashing over his chest with a gasp.

“Fuck,” he hisses out as he slumps back onto the mattress. Eyes closed he just lies there in the dark, gives in to the swirling warmth that spreads and dissipates through his muscles. Idly he realises he’s managed to get come on his own damn throat and he wipes it away with his fingertips, smears it off along his chest.

Come is seeping through his t-shirt cool and wet, so he sits up with a groan, pulls the t-shirt over his head and uses it to clean himself up before dropping it to the floor beside his bed. Toeing the covers across he slides in under them, shivering as the cold sheets settle over his pleasure-hot skin.

The anger has gone, forced out of him with his orgasm, and instead he just feels kind of sad. It’s ridiculous, it isn’t even like he and Jensen were that close. And yet...something about the Jensen he’s been seeing was so intriguingly new. So warm and genuine. And belatedly, Misha realises he wanted it. Wanted Jensen as more than just a co-star, than as a friend.

Because the thing is, he thinks as sleep soothes in around the edges of his consciousness, Jared might be the one that he’s always felt to be a kindred spirit, all loud and obnoxious and attention seeking. But when all is said and done, Jared and he have almost opposite reasons for their similar behaviour. Jared is Jared. He wants attention and laughter and friendship, and he’ll tickle and poke and annoy until he gets it.

Misha gets what Jensen meant when he’d said that he had so many masks and didn’t know they were there. But he’s wrong, he knows his masks are often a cover. Too well. He knows that he acts obnoxious and plays for laughs because it’s easier, safer. Way less vulnerable than putting the real him out there. The him that worries his acting isn’t good enough, that his acting choices not worthy, that he doesn’t have anyone in particular to share his life with. That he gave up careers that meant something to play dress-up. That grew up poor and is scared to use his money to live with. That doesn’t know whether or not signing a piece of paper will ensure his descent into the easy life of 'no real meaning'.

And if that’s the case, then he’s a shitload closer in personality to Jensen than he’s ever really acknowledged. Instead of hiding behind reserve he hides behind insanity. Neither of them let anyone in without careful vetting. Both internal, prone to over-thinking. Caring too much.

Or so he was beginning to think anyway. He sighs and turns over onto his side, bunching a pillow under his head.

He’s beginning to drift off properly when his phone chimes from the nightstand, illuminating the wall in a soft glow. Rolling over he fumbles it up, looks at the name on the screen, the text message underneath.

_jensen ackles: sory for 2night. don’t yu get that its s not about jay.? so obvious its about u. ergh. drunk._

And fuck. He isn't even up to interpreting that right now.

He thumbs down the power button hard until the screen goes black.

 

* * *

 

He’s up early the next morning. It’s grey and drizzly outside, uncharacteristically so, but it suits his mood. After a quick shower he pulls on tracksuit pants and an old ratty t-shirt, grabs an apple from the fridge and heads out into the foggy morning. It’s not cold, but it isn’t warm, and the fog hangs in the air, mixing with smog and tinting everything a dull asphalt.

Nowhere to be for the rest of the day he starts slow, running out west and skirting the foothills of the Hollywood hills. He takes it easy, a slow jog, intent on pushing himself, running until he can’t run any further. He needs it to clear his head.

The events of the previous evening flash on a loop through his head, Jensen being a dick, the guy from Smallville, Jared’s ass of a friend with the douchey three names. The girls with the different bottle-colour hair. Jensen laughing along at the moronic humour.

And then his mind flashes back to the text message. Brightly illuminated in the dark vision of his bedroom at night. Whatever it was meant to mean.

Misha steps up the pace a little, feeling the pavement thump louder under his feet, the sweat break out on the back of his neck.

The images in Misha’s mind flip away from the previous night. Jensen picking him up at the airport, quiet and happy to just be there. Kane’s knowing grin and comment that Misha would be able to influence Jensen’s behaviour. Jensen’s willingness to come and participate in one of Misha’s strange days out. The invite to a movie that Misha would be interested in.

The way that Jensen had reacted when Misha had accused him of using him as a substitute for Jared.

He overdoes the running and stops by the side of the road, leans over, hands on his knees and claws the breath into his lungs. Fuck, he was an idiot. Of course there was a reason that Jensen had turned into a colossal asshole. Misha had taken all those gestures, all those apparently genuine attempts at friendship and thrown it back at him. Like an ass.

Turns out there was more than one dick at the party last night after all.

He’s never been good at knowing when someone was interested. When your default position was set to ‘flirt’ it meant that every interaction ever was fun and full of sexual innuendo. It meant that recognising actual intent behind it that much harder when it came along. Not that he knows that that is what that message meant. He doesn't. But at the very least it seems to indicate a desire for real friendship. Anything else.. well, best not think about that just yet. One step at a time.

He pulls out his phone and thumbs it unlocked, scrolls down the list of contacts until he finds Jensen’s name. Quickly he sends off a text.

_misha collins: where you at?_

He only has to wait thirty seconds, letting his heart rate drop as he watches the sleepy street he’s found himself wake up - a guy across the street take out the trash, a car further down blink its red taillights into existence - before his phone chimes in response.

_jensen ackles: runyon canyon. dog run. why?_

Runyon Canyon is less than a mile away from where Misha's ended up. Of course it is. He texts back.

_misha collins: stay put._

Shoving his phone back into his pocket he sets back into his jog, adjusting direction slightly to aim for the park. It only takes him another ten minutes at a medium pace. It’s still early, but there are dog owners a plenty, some running with their dogs, others reading the paper while Fido chases Spike for all he's worth, still more ignoring the havoc their four-legged friends are wreaking while they sip their lattes and star watch.

He finds Jensen on a park bench, arms propped on his knees and chin cupped in his hands. A short distance away Icarus is chasing Harley and Sadie around in large looping circles. Slowing to a walk Misha heads over and drops onto the bench next to him. Jensen looks up, surprised at his silent entrance even with the heads up.

“Hey,” Misha says, can’t help but smile just a little wider than normal.

Jensen smiles back, but he seems somewhat on edge. “Hi. What are you doing here?”

“Was out jogging, you were nearby,” he answers. “Thought I'd come by and say hello.”

Jensen stares forward at the dogs, but looks at Misha out of the corner of his eye. “Wasn’t sure I’d be your favourite person, right now.”

Misha shrugs. “I try not to play favourites.”

Which isn’t an answer, not at all. But he isn’t willing to go deeper just yet.

“Well. Whatever,” Jensen says, clears his throat and keeps his gaze studiously on the dogs in front of him. “Sorry I was a dick. It was...I don't know...sometimes those guys bring out the worst in me.”

Misha nods, though Jensen isn’t looking at him to see it. It’s not the whole truth, but it’ll do for now. It at least confirms what he thought, that Jensen isn’t actually just a pretty face with money and fame. He just acts like one on tv.. er.. in reality. He changes tack. “I thought you’d be vomiting your innards out over a porcelain bowl right about now. It wasn’t a big night?”

Jensen shakes his head, smiles ruefully. “I didn’t feel much like partying. Got smashed quickly and left not long after you. Burnt out quick too. Which isn’t to say my head isn’t fucking killing me right now, because it is. Just wasn’t there long enough to do real damage.”

Interesting.

Misha nods. “I am the life of the party. It is hard for people to go on without the gravity of my brilliance to orbit.”

Jensen laughs, sits up and back, leaning against the back of the wooden seat, one arm stretched along the top and resting behind Misha. “Any one ever tell you you’re full of yourself, Collins?”

“It’s already carved on my tombstone.”

“By yourself, no doubt.”

“Only way to know it’s done to my exacting standards.”

Jensen snorts, goes back to watching the dogs as Harley and Sadie launch a counter attack, ganging up and turning on the white ball of fuzz that is Jensen’s mutt. Misha puts his money on them winning. Despite Jensen’s insistence that Icarus is smarter than the two of them put together.

“Hmm...” Misha hums softly as he studies Jensen’s profile.

“Hmmm?” Jensen queries, turning fully to look at Misha. His eyes are extremely green in contrast to the gray cloudy sky behind him. It’s the kind of thing people would write poetry about, Misha muses.

“Nothing,” he says eventually, gives up on figuring Jensen out. They sit and watch the dogs in companionable silence; make peace with each other without actually saying anything that needs to be said.

Misha feels his heart-rate come down from the run, the sweat cooling and clammy under his t-shirt. He so can't be fucked running all the way back home again. It's over 4 miles, and he can't remember why he was so insistent on running so far in the first place.

Jensen laughs as Icarus clamps down on a large fallen tree branch that's four times as long as he is and tries to drag it around away from the other two. Which doesn't so much work as it does egg them on.

"So what were you going to do if you weren't an actor?" Misha asks, randomly as the thought enters his head.

Jensen scratches absently through the stubble-beard he has going on over the break, shrugs. "When I fucked my knee and realised I wasn't going to play for Dallas I figured I'd go into some kind of sports therapy role. Play on the sidelines, as it were."

"So if I swooned and hurt my ankle right now, you'd be able to fix it?"

"Are you planning on swooning right now?" Jensen asks laughingly.

"If you play your cards right," Misha grins.

Jensen just snorts and doesn't bother answering.

He lets him off the hook, cocks his head. "So you'd have been happy at that? Being on the sidelines?"

Jensen looks at him, actually holds his gaze for a long moment. "Sure. I mean, I don't act because I want the spotlight, you know?"

It seems obvious when he puts it like that. And of course he doesn't. Reserved doesn't work with celebrity. And yet somehow that has managed to escape Misha. Which makes him feel a little stupid.

"Your dad is an actor, yeah?" he queries.

Jensen nods. "Yup."

"Is that why, then?"

"Why I became an actor?"

"Yeah."

"Not really. Well I mean, I guess on some level. I knew he loved it, despite the down times. I just...thought I'd try it, you know? See if it stuck...It did."

"So if it's not for fame and fortune?"

Jensen shrugs again, this time more deliberately. "I just like to act, man. Be in someone else's skin."

Misha is silent, lets Jensen's words sink in as they watch the dogs roughhouse.

"Why do _you_ do it?" Jensen asks eventually, watches Misha for the answer.

He considers a glib retort about a Mercedes S-Class and minion army but it falls flat on his tongue. "I honestly don't know," he says instead. Recognises the truth as it tumbles out of his mouth.

Jensen raises an eyebrow at him. "You sound surprised by your own answer."

Misha laughs softly, at himself. "Yeah. Maybe I am."

Jensen is shaking his head. "I dunno. Seems like something you might want to figure out if you don't want to go batshit in this industry."

Misha nods, because maybe Jensen's right, and they fall comfortably silent. By the time Jensen stands up and calls the trio of monsters over to be re-leashed and led to the car Misha has decided two things. One, he's going to give Jensen a chance. Because clearly he hasn't yet, and maybe there's something between them that could be good. Really fucking good.

Also?

He’s pretty fucking sure that Jensen has absolutely no memory of sending that text message. He's a good actor, but he's not _that_ good.

 

* * *


	8. Chapter 8

Early on Saturday morning as Misha's elbow deep in bubbles and hot water, finally washing the long overdue stack of dishes piled around the sink, Jensen calls to remind him about Kane’s gig that night. Which is just as well, because Misha had completely forgotten.

But it works for him, because he wants an excuse to spend some more time with Jensen. Time to reaffirm that Jensen isn’t Hollywood, that fame hasn’t ruined him the way it could easily do. Does easily, for so many posers and empty shiny people that Misha has had occasion to meet by virtue of sharing the same town.

They arrange to meet outside the Hotel Café at 8, and before Jensen can go Misha manages to remind Jensen not to wear anything pink and he hangs up laughing at the “Fuck you, man” that rings out of the phone’s speakers at him.

Jensen is leaning up against a concrete wall two entrances down from the venue when Misha turns up at five minutes to. He’s dressed casually, jeans and a worn grey t-shirt, slightly heeled scuffed boots on display where his ankles are crossed in front of him. Misha himself had thrown on a bright pink t-shirt that declared “This is what a Feminist looks like” in scrawled crimson lettering over the front. It’s not particularly Hollywood, but it _is_ pink.

Jensen is on the phone so Misha walks straight up to him and stands directly in his field of vision and partly in his personal space.

Jensen's eyebrows arch as he listens to whoever is on the other end of the line, but he smirks and very deliberately sweeps his gaze all the way down Misha’s torso, taking in the shirt, but then dips lower, down Misha's legs and back up.

Which absolutely doesn’t do anything to Misha's stomach. At all.

Jensen grins at him, says into the phone. “Yeah, he’s here.”

Misha cocks his head and Jensen mouths _Jared_ in response.

Jensen laughs at whatever Jared says and Misha feels a little like a kid not in on the joke.

“Sure thing,” Jensen continues. “Okay man, stay safe. See you in a couple weeks. Love to Gen.”

Jensen hangs up and palms his phone into his back pocket, but he doesn’t push up off the building, just stays there watching him with an amused smile. “Pink, really?"

"It brings out my eyes.”

“Because they’re so bland,” Jensen snorts.

Misha bats his eyelashes, adopts a Valley Girl accent. “You think I’m so pretty.”

"I think you're going to give Chris a heart attack is what I think," Jensen muses, finally pushing up off the wall and turning in the direction of the bar. “C’mon, let’s get in there before he has my guts for garters.”

Once again, Jensen bypasses the line waiting to get in, heads straight for the bouncer.

“Hey man, how are ya?” the guy says with a beaming smile completely counter to the burly physique and previous scowl.

“Good man, how are you? The wife?” Jensen queries.

The bouncer grins. “Can’t complain. Married life suits me. You oughta try it sometime.”

Jensen laughs. “One day, Ross, one day. The guys already in there?”

“Yup. Been drinking since the sound check. Should be an awesome night,” _Ross_ grins. “Go on in,” he adds, standing aside to let them pass.

It makes Misha wonder about the other night, the other line jump.

Inside is pleasantly different from the club they’d been in earlier in the week too. Instead of chaotic disco lights and dance floor, they’re in a proper bar - stage set up down one end, bar down the front and booths around the edges and back. The decoration is old wood and reminds Misha of a Western saloon. There’s even a long-horn cattle skull mounted above the bar, which is a bit much, he thinks, though he's never particularly understood the desire to display carcasses as art so perhaps he shouldn't judge.

Jensen taps his shoulder to get his attention and leads them around to a booth in the corner, it’s got a reserved sign on it in folded cardboard, but underneath the typed font is scrawled “Hollywood” in black marker.

Jensen laughs when he sees it and throws himself down into the seat.

Misha raises an eyebrow in question as he slips in on the other side and Jensen simply says, “Kane,” with a lopsided grin.

“Jen!” Comes a happy cry that brings a pretty looking waitress along with it. She’s curvy in jeans and a tight black t-shirt, pencil tucked behind her ear and has empty beer bottles threaded by their necks in her fingers.

Jensen grins ear to ear. “Cal, hey! How are you?”

The woman smiles and even Misha will admit it’s pretty dazzling. “Not bad man. Long time no see, you’re here to see your boys?”

Jensen nods. “Damn straight.” He turns and catches Misha’s eye. “Misha this is Callie. Callie,   
Misha,” he introduces. “Best waitress this side of the Mississippi and probably working on the other side as we speak.”

He winks at her and Callie laughs, loud and throaty. “You’re such a dick, Jensen.”

Jensen shakes his head.

“No really,” he says to Misha. “Callie is one of those people who knows what you want to drink without even getting your order. It’s a gift.”

Misha looks at Callie appraisingly. “That so. Well that is definitely worth seeing.”

Callie smirks, cheeks dimpling attractively and she looks him up and down as if weighing him up, deciding who he is and what he'd drink. “You’ll see. I’ll be back.”

She heads back to the bar, picking up another empty bottle on her way, and they both watch her go. “Nice ass,” Misha comments speculatively.

“Dude,” Jensen groans. “You cannot say shit like that wearing _that_ shirt.”

The corner of Misha’s mouth pulls up in an amused smile. “And yet…”

Jensen laughs and they fall silent as they watch the comings and goings around them. People file in as the line outside is put out of its misery and the room starts filling up with noise and motion.

Callie comes back five minutes later with drinks on a tray. She hands Jensen a bottle of Shiner which he evidently approves of, if the way his eyes light up in relief is anything to go by, and then turns to Misha with a flourish, sets a martini glass with something transparently pink inside. An olive sits at the bottom. “Pink Vodka Martini,” she says with a cheeky grin.

Misha has to give it to her, now that he sees it, it's _exactly_ what he wants. He grins up at her. “You? Are awesome,” he states and raises the glass in salute.

“Oh I know,” she agrees amicably. “You boys just holler when you need more to douse your livers with.”

She turns on a wink and is gone.

“Told you,” Jensen says to Misha, takes a swig of beer and then swipes at his lip with the side of his hand.

Misha takes a generous sip of the pink coloured vodka and vermouth, relishes the way it burns down his throat.

“No Corona tonight?” he can't help dig, sets the glass carefully on the table so as not to spill it out of the shallow bowl.

“God no,” Jensen groans, looks physically pained. “I only drink that shit on two occasions. One, at Trousdale because it’s the closest and only thing they have approaching something that’s even mildly fucking drinkable.” Jensen jabs a finger at the table top in emphasis, another for his second point. “And two, when Jared buys the fucking beer without adult supervision.”

Misha laughs, surprised. Seems he’s been assuming shit all over the place recently.

Jensen grins. “What, you thought I liked that watered down crap? Man, I’m from Texas! We don't drink fruit in our fucking beer.”

“Jared’s from Texas too,” he points out, sips at his martini again.

“Jared’s special,” Jensen says, emphasis on the ‘special’.

“How is he, by the way?” Misha asks, begins to feel the warmth spread down his legs as the alcohol goes straight into his system as if intravenously imbibed.

“Fine. Hasn’t lost anything, Gen’s still married to him and he’s managed to only break one suitcase they left with.”

“That must be some kind of a record.”

“I should think so. Then again, I suspect he’s lying,” Jensen says, with a chuckle, tips his bottle back and sucks down the beer.

Misha’s about to say something along the lines of Jared’s nose growing to match his gargantuan forehead when there’s movement from the stage and Kane takes the microphone with a Texas-drawled “Fuck, y’all, are noisy!”

The crowd erupts into cheers and laughter and the music begins.

 

* * *

 

Throughout the set Misha watches Jensen unabashedly. Possibly it’s because he’s had another two of Callie’s mysteriously pink Martini’s (which don’t, as far as Misha can tell, have anything different in them than a normal Vodka Martini, except for food colouring). Possibly it's because he’s fairly sure he might have trouble walking in a straight line if questioned by an officer of the law right now.

But Jensen is too _something_ for Misha _not_ to watch with curious fascination and more than a little curl of aroused heat curdling in his gut.

Throughout the songs Jensen pays avid attention to the guys on stage, nodding along to the beat and shouting out catcalls at appropriate times. When he gets really into it he sings a long, and Misha can hear the gritty sound of his voice, perfectly in tune and heard only by him. His cheeks are flushed red, his lips wet from the beer he keeps in his hand and his eyes fucking sparkle with happiness like a commercial for Visine. He's free and unfettered in a way that Misha has _never_ seen Jensen before.

And he likes it.

The drunker Jensen gets, and admittedly, the drunker Misha gets, the more he's finding it really damn hard not to back Jensen up against the wall and demand a repeat performance of two years prior.

By the time the band finishes up - the crowd hollerin' and whooping after a second encore song - and Jensen has thrown himself back down into the booth, legs splayed under the table and slumped happily against the leather, they are definitely worse for wear. Not that it seems to matter, he's pretty sure the band was just as smashed, if not more.

Speaking of...

Chris himself comes swaggering out of the crowd, a sea of hands patting him on the back as he passes through. Bottle of half-empty Jack in hand, sweat running down the sides of his face and beaming like a goddamn lunatic. He elbows Jensen over, forcing him further into the booth and Jensen's thigh presses up against Misha's like a furnace. He makes no move to scoot over and give him more room though. Because he's evil like that. Or too drunk to move. One or the other.

"Fuck!" Chris grins, swigs heavily at the whiskey. "That fucking rocked. Why'd I stop playing here again?"

"'Cause you're as stubborn as a fucking mule. However, you are right, that did fucking rock." Jensen grins happily, drunken friendliness settling into his features.

Chris looks to Misha, and Misha is compelled to add his two cents. "I'm not as drunk as he is, but I concur. On both counts."

The not as drunk bit is a lie, and Jensen snorts, because he's every bit as drunk as Jensen by this point, and they all know it, but Chris' moved on from the praise anyway, focusing instead on Misha's shirt. "What the hell are you wearing, man? I could see it from the fucking stage."

Misha shrugs nonchalantly, although given the alcohol in his system, he suspects it's more of a sloppy Mexican wave of his shoulders. "I feel you shouldn't discriminate against a spectral colour."

Beside him, Jensen grins. "They come back and haunt you."

"Wow," Chris remarks, swings the bottle up and sucks down more of its contents. "You two are fucking toasted. Did you stop drinking long enough to even catch a note or two?"

Jensen punches him in the arm, not very hard if the barking laugh Chris lets out is anything to go by. It makes his Adam's apple shake and Misha finds his gaze tracing a bead of sweat down the lines of Chris' tendons to where it disappears into the black cotton of his shirt.

Naturally, Chris sees this.

"See something you like there, Mish?" he grins, and Misha notes belatedly that he's drunk enough not to object to a stranger using his nickname.

Protesting is too obvious. "And what if I did?"

"Oh really," Chris' grin turns predatory and he growls the 'really' out into syllables it doesn't have. "I don't think you'd know what to do with me."

"Oh I might surprise you," Misha grins, shamelessly flirting. "I'm into all kinds of perverted hippie shit."

Chris laughs again, holds his hand over his heart as if worried it'll thump out through his ribs. "I'll bet you are. There has to be a reason Jen here wants to jump your bones."

Jensen rolls his eyes and mumbles out a 'whatever,' but Misha can't help but notice the way his cheeks colour another shade pinker.

"Awww," Misha coos. He leans over and places a wet sloppy kiss on Jensen's cheek with a laugh.

"Fuck off," Jensen growls, aiming for jovial but Misha hears the sliver of something else lacing it. Jensen swipes at his cheek to remove Misha's saliva and shifts towards Chris, taking the warm heat of his leg away from its home against Misha's. "I'm taking a piss. Get me another if Cal comes past."

Chris moves out of the way, lets Jensen up and out before he slides back into the booth, closer to Misha.

"Won't you then have two?" Misha quips and Jensen stops to study him curiously as he tries to figure it out.

"Two?"

"Pisses," Misha nods seriously. "If you take one and then we get another...."

Jensen shakes his head slowly. "You're fucking psychotic. Kane? You're in charge."

Chris laughs. "I'll hold you to that, Jenny."

Jensen glares at the name and then seems to find it a battle not worth winning, huffs and heads across the bar to the bathroom. Chris follows Jensen's path before he turns back to Misha, gaze suddenly a lot more intense and a lot less drunk.

"So, are you just fucking with him or what?"

Misha imagines the look on his face must be pretty bewildered. "The fuck?"

Chris rolls his eyes like he's talking to a really small child. "Jensen. Are you fucking with him or are you just a dick?"

"Hey now," Misha starts. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about. And you don't know me from shit to know if I'm a dick or not."

Chris arches an eyebrow dangerously. "No? I know that you two fucked and he's been pining over you ever since. And now you're sitting here trying to get into my pants."

Misha splutters, "Excuse me? Two years ago he fucked me. Him. I was there and convenient, he made it pretty damn clear he didn't want anything further."

Chris shakes his head almost sadly. "Son, are you dumber than a box of rocks? If you think Jensen would ever fuck someone because it's 'convenient' then you don't know him at all."

"Says the guy who didn't want him to come out looking all Hollywood," Misha mutters, knowing exactly how five years old he sounds.

Chris snorts into the bottle as it's on the way to his mouth. "Because he _isn't_ Hollywood. That's the fuckin' point, Collins."

Which. Oh.

Misha feels that it's very unfair that his most lucid epiphanies come to him when he's way too drunk to process them sanely. He sits there, staring into the empty Martini glasses bunched in front of him for a moment.

Well fine then. If that's what the fucking deal was, then he'd fucking deal with it.

"I'll be...back," he finds himself saying, sliding to the end of the seat.

"Take your time, man. I got Jack to keep me company," Chris says, holds up the now two-thirds empty bottle. "But hey, Collins?" he says, and Misha turns back to him. "You hurt him and I will mess you up. Just so's you know."

Chris is grinning, but Misha has no doubt that he means it.

 

* * *


	9. Chapter 9

He waits outside the mens room by the lonely couple of public phones. The row of people lined up has declined, everyone had headed to the bathroom the second the music finished, apparently.

When Jensen finally emerges he's wiping wet hands on his jeans. He spies Misha propped against the wall watching him.

"Is it true?" Misha asks when he's close enough to hear, mentally kicks himself for having all the tact of the Spanish Inquisition.

"Is what true?" Jensen's brow furrows as he approaches.

In for a penny...

"That you've wanted me since your sexual harassment of me two years ago?"

Jensen's face turns thunderous and he turns as if to head into the bar proper. "I'm going to fucking kill him."

Misha catches his shirt sleeve, fingertips brushing against the soft skin of Jensen's wrist. "Wait. Is it true?"

Jensen looks torn, murderous and embarrassed all at once. "Misha..." he says and there's no mistaking the warning tone.

But Misha doesn't heed it.

"No, you know what Jensen, fuck that. You don't get to act indignant. 'Cause for two years I've thought you screwed me because I was there and you were bored, and that when you got what you wanted you shut the hell up and wouldn't even meet my eye. So now I find out that it wasn't some douchey Hollywood behaviour, that actually, maybe it was something else entirely? I get to ask. Is it true?"

The words come out in a rush of verbal diarrhea, and Misha's too wound up to care if he sounds like a brat, or a girl, or hell, if he's even wrong. He just needs a fucking answer.

Jensen's eyes slide back to him and his shoulders slump as the fight goes out of him. His hands flex helplessly at his sides.

"I never...It wasn't because I was bored, Misha."

Which Misha is sober enough to realise is not a _no_. He goes to reply, to demand more, but Jensen is already continuing, wrinkles appearing above his nose where his eyebrows close in on each other in concern.

"I didn't mean it to happen. I wanted you. Of course I fucking wanted you. And then I reached when I shouldn't have and we did what we did. And then Eric was on the phone telling me how you were going to get more episodes and I panicked."

"Why?" Misha asks, because he's genuinely fucking confused. If anything, more time meant more opportunity, not _less_ , surely?

"Because I let my feelings get the better of me!" Jensen growls, frustrated and clearly embarrassed. "I never should have...I would normally never... but we were filming and it was so..." Jensen fumbles for the words, " _intense_ and I acted on it. And it was unprofessional as all hell."

Misha is silent, for once he has absolutely nothing to say and no idea where to go when he opens his mouth.

Two girls come out of the women's bathroom a yard from them, giggling and drunk and barely sparing them a glance as they head back out into the bar.

He thinks about all the soap opera crap that's in his head for 'how to deal with xyz situation' - telling Jensen that it's okay to have feelings, that he's human and everyone fucks up, that it was mutual, there was two of them involved, and that he'd replayed that night a million times over in his head. Platitudes aside, what he really wants is to wipe the wounded embarrassment that has settled in Jensen's eyes away as fast as he can, and any manner of language involved is going to shut Jensen down and into his protective shell faster than Misha can blink.

He makes a decision.

"Kiss me."

"I...what?" Jensen's eyes go wide and for a second Misha thinks he's played it wrong, that Jensen is going to up and bolt.

"Kiss me." Misha demands, pitching his voice low. "Kiss me and then decide if it's a mistake," he taunts.

It's a dare in every sense of the word, and Misha worries that Jensen will pick truth instead. Brutal honest truth that won't allow him the chance he finds himself wanting Jensen to take.

Jensen's bottom lip catches between his teeth for one second, two, before it flicks free. And then Misha is being pushed gently, not rushed and lustful but slow and considering, back into the hard press of the wall. Jensen's hands on his shoulders, Jensen's mouth on his, soft and full and insistent and Misha makes an extremely undignified noise of surprised arousal and opens to him, unreservedly.

Hands slip up and cup Misha's face on either side, warm and steadying, thumbs pressing against his cheekbones as Jensen uses the grip to tilt Misha's mouth into his. Jensen's tongue is hot and slick when it slips past Misha's lips, insistent and focused but surprisingly gentle. Jensen tastes like sweet beer and smoke.

Jensen seeks his permission and Misha is really fucking willing to give it. His hands find their way to Jensen's waist, slipping under the soft cotton of Jensen's t-shirt and resting, lax but covetous, over his hips.

It's a slow burn of wet and soft, heat and alcohol, slide and teeth, and Misha finds himself drifting on a undulating wave of building arousal. It's at once nothing like the hot _need_ and _must_ that accompanied their first desperate encounter and at the same time it's almost hotter, the slow friction grinding itself into their veins. Misha can feel the flush rise up his skin, burning his cheeks and throat.

Someone wolf-whistles on their way into the bathroom and Jensen pulls back with a start, his lips flushed and shiny with saliva. Misha laughs, knowing even as he does that if they're caught on camera it could be really fucking problematic for both of them.

For a second he's worried that Jensen will freak out, declare the kiss a mistake and run for the hills. Instead, Jensen just smiles ruefully at him, wipes at his mouth with his cuff. Misha becomes aware, as the oxygen hits his brain cells, that he's backed against the wall between two telephone pods. And half hard.

He clears his throat, hopes he still has his voice. "Well?"

Jensen's smile widens minutely and an eyebrow arches in classic Winchester cockiness. "Well what?"

"Don't act coy, Jensen. It doesn't suit you," Misha reprimands, even though it really _really_ does.

And that does nothing but succeed in widening Jensen's smile into an even more dazzling array of teeth. Jensen cocks his head to one side, appears to consider seriously.

"It didn't suck," he says eventually, low and gravelly. He nods seriously and steps straight on back into Misha's personal space.

This time the kiss is anything but gentle. Jensen's mouth is hot on his, strong and forceful. Teeth sink into Misha's lower lip and pull with a sharp nip that has him groaning and wishing he had purchase on something, _anything_ , to allow friction and relieve the pressure tightening his muscles, nerves and cock.

He allows himself to push back, thrusts and plunders Jensen's mouth in a preemptive strike, re-collects Jensen's hips in his hands and pulls his body flush against his own. He can feel Jensen's answering erection growing against his hip and he pulls him in further, slides his hip up against the hardness to hear Jensen gasp into his mouth.

Jensen's lips are soft, the stubble of his skin prickly against Misha's mouth when Misha licks at the corner of Jensen's. Misha's world narrows down to hard and soft, hot and wet, beer and vodka, hands and cocks. And it is so fucking good he thinks he might burst.

The past weeks have been so fucking confusing. Not knowing what was up and what was down, where he stood, who Jensen was. A series of endless questions. But Misha knows the answer to the question running through his head right now.

He wants Jensen, and he wants him now. He's willing to risk public indecency if he has to.

Jensen must read his mind because he's pulling away again, which really fucking sucks, but his pupils are blown as wide as demon special effects and the way he licks his lips, compulsively but like he doesn't even know he's doing it, confirms to Misha that they're in the same fucking place. Finally.

When he speaks, Jensen's voice is gruffer than Misha's ever heard it, and the decibel range makes a shudder wend its way like hot lightning down Misha's chest and gut. "Your place or mine?"

He doesn't need to think, they're miles closer to his place. "Mine."

Jensen nods and his hand snakes out and closes around Misha's wrist, tugging him away from the alcove and into the bar where rock is being piped out of the speakers and the night has gotten dirtier and drunken. Jensen drops Misha's hand as they leave the relative private, but the way he keeps glancing over his shoulder leaves Misha with no doubt that he's making sure he keeps close.

They swing by the table where Chris has been joined by other members of the band and an off-shift Callie.

Chris whistles in an irritating taunt when he sees the state of them, Misha with thumbprints on his cheekbones and Jensen flushed pink, and slaps his palm out to the guy lounging opposite him with a beer. He receives a twenty and a death-glare for his troubles.

"Never bet against the house, Carlson," Chris grins.

Jensen rolls his eyes at both of them. "Fuck you all, heathens. We're out of here."

Misha barely gets a 'Great show, thanks,' out before Jensen is pulling him by the sleeve and out of the bar. Jensen is kind of pushy when he's horny.

It occurs to him that he has once again not been introduced to Jensen's friends. This time he can't bring himself to care, not when Jensen tugs him around a corner and pushes him up against the cold brick of an abandoned building, mouth on his, seeking and claiming.

"Jensen," Misha demands, but it comes out more like a plea. "We need to get somewhere private. Really goddamned soon." He can't help leaning in though, sliding his tongue into Jensen's mouth, slick and coaxing.

Jensen goes with it for a second and then breaks off, apparently conflicted. Misha understands the feeling. Then Jensen nods, heads back towards the street, and Misha fumbles to stay close on his heels. They hail a passing cab with astoundingly good luck.

It takes all Misha's willpower not to turn the ride into an episode of Taxi Cab Confessions - or low budget porn. Jensen's fingers, picking at the hem of his t-shirt, clutching reflexively at one of his knees, make Misha pretty sure it's not just him.

The car ride is only 15 minutes, but it feels like a hundred.

 

* * *


	10. Chapter 10

Misha watches Jensen practically throw a wad of cash at a very grateful taxi driver before he scrambles out of the backseat to join him. Misha almost trips going up his stairs, stairs that he built himself, knows every inch of and has never _ever_ tripped on.

Jensen's hand is at the small of his back, a hot spread of warmth through Misha's t-shirt, steadying reflexively. It's something Jensen does on set, always looking after Misha and Jared, checking they're okay, unhurt by stunts, fed, rested, keeping hydrated. It's never really occurred to Misha, until this particular moment that it's anything other than an overdeveloped sense of professional courtesy. Which of course it is. But maybe it's also something _more_. Maybe it speaks to how Jensen treats his friends rather than just his co-workers.

The front door has a trick to it, and Misha jiggles the knob just so, heaves at it with his hip a tad too fast and too hard, a sharp intake of breath at the sliver of pain that shoots through the bone. He doesn't care though, because as soon as he's in and the door closes behind them, he rounds and pushes Jensen back up against the hallway wall, a litter of shoes at their feet and coats closing in on both sides.

Jensen's breath is hot against his cheek, his eyes dark and glittering, caught on his and unwavering. Instead of pressing his mouth back to Jensen's, which is what he wants to do most, he pauses, body plastered against Jensen's, erection tight in his jeans and the feel of Jensen's own pushing at his thigh. "This is why turtles are better."

Jensen blinks, comically bewildered. "What?"

"Turtles," he repeats, slow, like he's talking to a child. "This is why they're better."

Jensen shakes his head, breath ghosting across Misha's lips like an oscillating fan. "Better than what?"

"Dogs."

"Seriously, Misha. What the hell?" Jensen growls, but there is too much of a laugh in it, too much breathlessness to take it as admonishment.

"Dogs get all up over you when you get home," Misha nods seriously. Jensen 'ahhs' as if this makes perfect sense, and Misha appreciates the effort, even if it's placating the insane.

He steps back, just a fraction, a swirling vacuum of cooler air rushing between their bodies. Finding Jensen's hips again he tiptoes his fingertips up Jensen's sides, a slow tease of touch.

"Dogs make it hard to do things like this," Misha says, walks his fingertips back down to the edge of Jensen's jeans. Follows the leather of Jensen's belt inwards to the buckle. They both look down to watch Misha's fingers as they coax the leather through the metal with soft metallic clanks.

"I'm pretty sure a dog wouldn't care about you undoing my belt," Jensen says, wryly.

Misha draws the zip down, can feel the heat emanating from the flesh held inside. "Maybe not," he allows. "But it's a hell of a lot of awkward when you're trying to give a blow job and there's a furry four-legged mop humping your leg."

Jensen snorts, but it turns into a strangled intake of air as Misha slips the tips of his fingers inside the mouth of the zipper, lets them touch the hot swell of Jensen's cock through his briefs. Misha watches as Jensen takes a steadying breath, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. "You better not be meaning Icarus, man."

Misha shrugs, slides his fingers in to the second knuckle to curve around Jensen. Another intake of breath, another victory. "I'm just saying. My turtles aren't getting in the way."

"Your turtles don't do anything but fight, Misha."

"Yes but-"

Jensen groans. "Are you seriously trying to hold a conversation right now?"

"You should never underestimate the power of a good conversation," Misha reprimands, can't help the smile that tucks itself into the corner of his mouth. "For instance," he says, sliding his fingers all the way into Jensen's jeans and wrapping his hand completely around Jensen's erection. "We could talk about the fact that for two years now I've been missing the way your cock felt, hot and so fucking hard, wrapped in my fingers. You know?"

"Oh god," Jensen groans. "This was a bad idea wasn't it? You're going to kill me."

"Only if you beg real purrty," Misha drawls. He crooks his index finger, lets it drag up and down the underside of Jensen's erection in a slow come-hither movement.

Jensen's eyelids flutter and he hmmms. "Keep doing that and I just might. Jesus."

"Two years, Jensen. Two years when I could have been doing just this." He gives in to the temptation, leans forward, pinning his hand and Jensen's cock between them as he sucks a pink blossom of bruise into Jensen's throat where the scruff of his almost-beard meets clean skin.

Misha feels the laugh that tremors through the skin under his lips. "Two years when I could have been laying you out, fucking you, having you, owning you..." He punctuates each phrase with a nip to Jensen's throat.

"I get it, I'm an idiot," Jensen says, but his words come out stuttered and gasped.

Misha _mmm's_ into Jensen's neck, nips gently at the warm skin. He pulls back, freeing his arm and sliding his hand back out of Jensen's jeans.

He attempts serious for a moment, hopes that Jensen will appreciate it's genuineness. "For what it's worth, I'm glad you're an idiot and not just a dick."

Jensen's mouth twists in, pinched. "I'm slightly insulted that you think I would just sleep with you like a piece of meat."

Which is fair, when all is said and done. He should have thought it through, and yet somehow, in all the time he's thought about it in the intervening years, it has never occurred to him that he might be _wrong_ about what happened. He'd been so focused on making Jensen's behaviour into something excusable that he never considered that maybe there was nothing to excuse.

He wants to say he's sorry, but it feels too open, too soon. Even for Jensen. Hell, especially for Jensen. Instead he defaults. "If I grovel and you beg, we'll make quite the pair."

Jensen's frown eases, and he reaches forward, hands sliding around Misha's waist and pulling him in. Misha goes willingly, infinitely glad that Jensen knows him. Knows what he means to say even if he doesn't quite say it.

He hadn't even realised until now that Jensen knew him well enough do that, has done for months now.

Jensen's lips on his are chaste - closed and soft. It's sweet and Misha smiles into it, even as he presses himself close, feels Jensen's legs open enough to insinuate a thigh between them, rocks up gently into the heat.

Misha's throat vibrates over a groan, the pressure growing between his legs at the slow friction. "I don't know though, I could really go for you begging."

"Oh yeah?" Jensen murmurs, a grin teasing the corners of his mouth.

Misha nods, continues the undulating motion of his hips, his cock pushing into Jensen's solid stance. "Oh yeah," he nips at Jensen's bottom lip, stays a hair's breadth from his mouth. "You on your knees, hard and leaking for me? Your mouth so plump and pink, begging me to let you suck me? Yeah. That'd do it for me."

"I'll keep that in mind," Jensen says against Misha's lips, completely failing to rise to the bait, keeping them grounded and slow and not hot and hard where Misha wants them to escalate to.

He flicks his tongue at Jensen's lips, teases until Jensen opens on a smile, allows him entrance. The kiss remains soft; testing, learning. Misha learning how Jensen's mouth feels against his, the way his stubble tickles prickly soft against his lips. The way Jensen holds him firm, hands splayed along Misha's sides. The way they thrust against each other in abortive little almost-movements, not reaching for an endpoint but enjoying the ride.

When they break apart, Misha tries really hard to hide the ridiculous grin his face wants to split into. It feels _right_. Jensen feels right. His mouth, his body, his hands. All of it feels like a puzzle-piece clicking into place. Equilibrium righting itself where Misha hadn't even realised it was off balance.

Jensen smiles at him, his hands sliding warm and possessive around Misha's back. "As much as I enjoy your entryway and it's lack of canines...?" He trails off suggestively.

Misha laughs, the alcohol from earlier tripping his veins and making his head light and airy. "Can I show you something in 'more comfortable,' perhaps in a paisley?"

Jensen nods, presses up off the wall. His fingers wrap around Misha's wrist, a hot band of flesh.

A few stops to kiss and reacquaint on the long journey from the hall to his bedroom - they have to pass a whole two doors at least - and finally they're almost somewhere that they can be horizontal.

Jensen is visibly cataloging the room, taking in the large bed, wooden furniture, chairs and nightstands, all made with Misha's hands. The large esoteric black and whites on the wall. Twenties era lamp on the nightstand.

And then Jensen's gaze falls on the rocking chair. Misha finds himself being pulled toward it, then stood there as Jensen pops the button to his jeans, slides down the zip. Misha's waiting for the echoing feel of Jensen's fingers on his cock, but they don't come. He's about to quip, throw in a lewd remark and a wink to get the party moving along, but Jensen just _looks_ at him, and with two hands on Misha's chest, pushes him down into the chair.

Misha feels the chair rock him backwards as Jensen crouches in front of him, situates himself between his legs. "You made this?" Jensen asks, sliding a thumb over the honeyed grain of the armrest on Misha's left.

Misha goes with the tangent. "Just something I whipped up earlier..."

Jensen looks up at him, eyes dark but glinting with moonlight from the windows. "It's really beautiful."

Which is just not something a man should be saying to another man, especially in the middle of foreplay. And Misha's about to say as much, impugn Jensen's manhood with a barb, but he doesn't get the chance.

Jensen's hands tighten on the arms of the chair and pull down, rocking the chair forward in a dangerous lurch and tipping Misha off-balance into Jensen's space. Jensen moves forward the last inch, plastering mouth to lips and his tongue darts in. Misha barely gets out a surprised grunt of air before he's swept into the heat and passion of Jensen's mouth melding into his own.

Apparently gentle is over.

Finally.

Misha's shoes dig into the carpet for purchase as Jensen keeps him tipped forwards. He finds Jensen's arms where they bracket him, grips Jensen's elbows for balance and presses forward into the wet heat.

It's not enough contact, not _nearly_ enough, just elbows and lips and Misha wants _more_.

But Jensen seems unwilling to give it to him. When Misha slides his hands past Jensen's elbows, tries to grip and pull at his arms, Jensen resists, smiles into the kiss and when Misha is forced to pull back, he can see the grin too.

"What?" he asks, and it comes out a little sharper than he intends.

"You're very impatient."

"Two years, Jensen. I am many awesome things, but a saint is not one of them."

Jensen snorts, "Let it go, man."

Misha's about to protest once again, when Jensen pushes him with a hand on his chest into the seat proper, the chair rocking with his weight.

He watches, eyes adjusting in the dark, as Jensen pins him with a gaze and his fingers go to Misha's previously opened jeans. And then Jensen's finger are exactly where Misha wants them, grazing feather-light over his stomach and sliding, hot and electric, under the band of his underwear. He hisses in a breath as Jensen's fingers - so warm, so sure - slide against his aching erection and curl around his cock.

Jensen is smiling triumphantly, and it really cannot be stomached, Misha thinks. Except for the part where it absolutely can.

"That's better," Jensen murmurs softly and Misha tilts his head back against the wood of the chair, lets Jensen work at him with his hand, the chair tipping gently back and forth with the movement. It's oddly relaxing at the same time as tense, but Misha goes with it, drifts softly on the alcohol haze and is pulled back sharply with arousal in a surreal back and forth.

His attention snaps back quickly when Jensen's fingers shift, pull the elastic of his briefs out and over the jut of his cock. The material bunches tight against his balls, a persistent press adding to the building pleasure. Jensen rests a hand on one of Misha's still denim-clad thighs, the other slinking back around Misha's hip, hooking around his ass and tugging him forward.

Misha only has seconds to recognise what's about to happen before Jensen's mouth is sucking the tip of his cock into its wet heat and Misha's hips jerk haphazardly up into it. He groans, and Jensen smiles around his flesh. His tongue darts out and Misha feels it flicker against the underside of the head, a solid press and tease.

 _"Fuck,"_ Misha groans, curls his fingers around the arm rests of the rocking chair and clings as his legs turn to jello and Jensen's mouth slides down further, pulls him in.

Jensen's tongue sears stripes of pleasure down the length of Misha's cock, sliding and curling, slipping up and over the head as he pulls back, lips taut around the girth. Misha's eyes are fixed on Jensen's lashes, a dark sweep of black against his skin. His eyes are closed and somehow Misha gets the impression that he's savouring him. When Jensen moans around him, the feel reverberating up his cock in a tight shiver, he's sure of it.

And then Jensen pulls back, eyes fluttering open and locking in on Misha's immediately. When Misha's about to slip out of the slick heat Jensen pulls with the hand on his ass and the chair lurches forward with him, his cock straight back into Jensen's mouth over the pillowy softness of Jensen's tongue.

The glint in Jensen's eye leaves Misha in no doubt that it's planned, and the fingers digging tightly into his ass back up the assumption. Jensen loosens his grip and the chair and Misha tip backwards once more, Misha's cock sliding almost completely free of Jensen's mouth. Almost - had Jensen not leaned in slightly, followed the movement and caught with his lips.

Jensen wraps an arm around Misha's back, the hand on Misha's thigh relocating to the chair arm and he begins to rock the chair in earnest, back and forth, forward and back, again, again, _again_. Misha's cock slides in and out of Jensen's mouth, the wrap of Jensen's lips. Misha's knees rub against Jensen's sides where he kneels between them, and it sends shivers of pleasure down the hypersensitive skin.

Misha moans, fights to keep his eyes open. It's too much and too random and the build of tension is tightening, fixating on its prize and ratcheting up to claim it. But it's too soon; he doesn't want it over just yet. Not after waiting this long to realise he wanted in the first place.

"Jensen," he whispers, unsure why he feels the need to keep quiet.

He presses his fingertips to Jensen's cheeks where they're hollowed around him. Pushes gently and Jensen pulls off, a string of saliva and precome connecting the tip of Misha's cock to Jensen's shiny bottom lip. Misha nearly comes at the obscene sight of it.

He reaches forward, fingers breaking the link and runs the pad of his thumb across Jensen's wet lip. He fights the surge that threatens when Jensen sucks Misha's thumb into his mouth and runs the tip of his tongue down its length. His cock jerks visibly and Misha has to close his eyes for a split second; grasp for calm.

"Jesus, Jensen. Be careful or its going to be over faster than you realise," he mutters, eyes still closed.

"You say that like it's a bad thing," Jensen huffs laughingly, slides his hands to Misha's thighs and rubs comfortingly over the denim.

"Mmm..." he feels somewhat centered and opens his eyes to find Jensen looking at him fondly. It's weird, how comfortable it feels and he can't help but displace, "If this is what it means to be Jared's stand in then I'm totally up for the job."

Jensen throws his head back and laughs. "Jay wishes. Besides, he'd have broken the fucking chair by now."

Misha grins, back in known territory, ignoring the fact that he's sitting inches from Jensen with his cock hard and pink between them. "I've seen Jared in the shower, he'd have broken your _mouth_ by now."

Jensen arches an eyebrow. "I'm not even going to ask why you'd have had opportunity to see Jared in the shower."

"It's best not to" Misha agrees solemnly.

Jensen doesn't answer, instead he leans forward and licks a wet stripe up the underside of Misha's cock in admonishment and Misha decides that really, there's a time for talking and now just isn't fucking it.

He pushes out of the chair, grabs at Jensen's shoulder so as not to topple him over, extends a hand that Jensen takes. He pulls him up to his feet, captures his mouth with his own as soon as it comes into range. Jensen tastes salty, musky, like himself, and the knowledge makes him groan and push, walking Jensen backwards towards the bed.

Jensen's knees hit the mattress and he collapses down on it with a light bounce and Misha crawls over him, finds his throat and sucks on it, nibbles and licks and draws guttural sounds out of him. Jensen is pushing up at him, hips pistoning slowly, rubbing his cock against Misha's belly. He grinds down, the sensitive skin of his cock objecting to the rough material of Jensen's jeans but unable to stop.

Misha drags his mouth up the expanse of Jensen's throat, sliding around to his neck and kissing hot open kisses into the skin. Jensen squirms and breathes heavily and Misha keeps moving, finds his way to Jensen's ear, nips quickly on the earlobe before breathing hot and moist into Jensen's ear. "Can I fuck you, Jen?"

Jensen goes still for a split second beneath him and then shudders. "Yes. _God yes._ "

Misha nods. Good. Because he really isn't sure what he would have done if Jensen had said no. There may have been tears.

Unable to spend any more time on foreplay he pulls back, levers himself off Jensen and stands back up, watches Jensen watching him as he shucks his jeans and underwear, toes them off with his shoes and socks.

"Too many clothes, Jen," Misha smirks, pulls at the hem of his t-shirt and pulls it over his head, throws it to the corner, a pink splash against the muted carpet. It doesn't escape his notice that Jensen has suddenly become 'Jen'. He'll worry about the ease of that later.

Jensen grins and sits up, makes quick work of his t-shirt and going to work on his jeans and shoes as Misha turns and rummages in the top drawer of his nightstand for lube and condoms.  
When he turns back, Jensen has slid up the bed, head on one of Misha's pillows and a long, lithe body of naked and toned muscle stretched over the mattress.

Misha's had his fair share of pretty laid out for him, but this may take the cake.

He crawls back onto the bed, kisses up Jensen's thigh, and briefly sucks at the tip of Jensen's cock which twitches and leaks cool salty wetness against his tongue. He explores up over Jensen's tight stomach, tongue dipping into his navel before he draws his attention higher. Bites at Jensen's right nipple which elicits a hitched breath - he files that away - before he can't tease himself any longer, let alone Jensen, and he descends on Jensen's pink swollen lips, tongue dipping in and claiming. The kiss goes on, and Misha is loathe to stop. Were it not for the aching mess of precome that he's smearing over Jensen's hip, he probably wouldn't.

He pulls back, presses a chaste kiss to Jensen's mouth in promise before sitting, slapping lightly at Jensen's hip. "Up and over."

Jensen's eyes are hungry and dark and he doesn't say a word, just gets to his hands and knees, his back an arch of skin and serrated length of spine.

Misha can't not touch, so he does, smoothing his palm over the expanse of skin. Down the back of Jensen's neck, between his tensed shoulder blades, trails a fingertip down his spine and follows it to the end, sliding down between the cheeks. Jensen presses back against the touch and Misha chuckles, reaches for the lube.

It's cold, but Misha uses that as sensation, dribbles the viscous liquid from the bottle at the edge of Jensen's ass and watches it slither down between the crease along with Jensen's shiver. He stops its path with a finger, pushes the liquid back up and in with the tip of his finger. Jensen moans and Misha pushes in fully, slides in and all the way back out slow and teasingly. He can already tell Jensen is aroused enough not to need the prep. Still. He teases some more, curls his finger and revels in the pained _Misha_ that hisses out of Jensen's mouth.

He acquiesces, wipes his fingers on his own stomach and reaches for the discarded condom packet. He tears it open, flicks the wrapper to the floor and rolls it on. Seconds later he's coated in more lube and reaching for Jensen's hips, settling himself to his knees behind him.

Jensen presses back against the head of him, impatient, and Misha allows it, pushes in with steady pressure until he feels the give and slides in home. The heat, the tight band holding him in place, Jensen's deep groaning into the pillow where he's fallen to his elbows.

Yeah. He isn't going to last long.

That's okay.

Gripping Jensen's hips tight he begins a slow draw back, slow push in, watching as he disappears into Jensen's body, the backs of Jensen's thighs hot against the front of his own. The soft slap of skin on skin.

_So. Fucking. Good._

It's only seconds before Jensen is shifting impatiently, urging the pace faster, and Misha is happy to oblige. He leans forward, reaches around Jensen's hip and takes Jensen's cock in hand. So hot, so fucking hard. The noise that Jensen makes as he does so finds its echo in Misha's throat and he hitches his hips faster, quicker, _now_.

 _"Misha. God."_ Jensen groans and his back arches, pushes his cock further into Misha's hand.

He's jacking Jensen's cock, bent at an awkward angle, the wet precome slicking his hand, the hot muscle under velvety skin providing even more stimuli for his arousal-addled brain. The push of heat in his stomach is growing, spreading up the base of his spine, tightening his balls and flexing through his cock.

Jensen is moaning, a litany of swear words and gasps, Misha's own name sliding out into the dark. A sheen of sweat breaks over Jensen's back, and he's arching in sinuous curves. Misha can't take his eyes off him.

Jensen stills, pausing, gasping; a bitten back cry and he's coming over Misha's hand in spurts of white. Misha eases him through it, lets his hand go soft around Jensen's cock, sliding back and forth in the mess of come, gentling and finally pulling away at the whimper Jensen tries to swallow.

It's enough. More than enough. Misha is going to come and it's going to be good. And _now_.

He pulls out of Jensen, slides the condom off quickly and throws it over the side of the bed. Wraps his fist around his cock, jacks hard and quick, once, twice, three times and then he's coming with a gasp, spilling over the skin of Jensen's back in jittery bursts in tandem with the pulsing pressure between his legs.

There's moaning and it could be either of them as they both fall to the bed, a heap of sweat and limbs, come and pleasure.

"That," Misha says, gasps for breath against Jensen's neck, "was worth waiting two fucking years."

He thinks Jensen murmurs a yes. It's something positive anyway, he's sure. Pretty sure. But it's too much to ask; too raw and unsteady. So he stays quiet.

They fall asleep without bothering to clean up.

 

* * *


	11. Chapter 11

When Misha wakes, eyes blinking at the white morning light filtering in through the blinds, he's alone in his bed. Turning over onto his back he feels the dried mess on his stomach crack and pull at his skin.

 _Well that's disgusting._

He wonders if Jensen left and how he should feel about that.

But then he realises that the house isn't empty. He hears the creak of the floorboards in the kitchen as someone moves around quietly. Hopefully it's Jensen and not some random vagrant. As his other senses come online he realises the scent of coffee is wafting into the room and Misha blesses every god in existence and a couple he makes up before sliding out from under the sheet and making his way into the bathroom.

A quick scrub with a washcloth to remove most of the gunk and he slips into a pair of almost clean sweatpants that are hanging over the towel rack in his bathroom. For some reason. He pulls on a ratty t-shirt from a pile of laundry he hasn't gotten around to putting away on the dresser and makes his way down the corridor to the kitchen.

Jensen is sitting at his kitchen table, back in his jeans and t-shirt from the night before, bare feet hooked on the rungs of the chair. Steam rises from a chipped 'Welcome to Pittsburgh!' mug in front of him. He looks up as Misha enters and smiles; something settles in Misha's stomach that he didn't know needed reassurance.

"Morning," Misha says blearily, nods and makes his way behind Jensen to the coffee pot, pours his own, black, into the mug with the bright red chicken on its side. He sits opposite Jensen at the cluttered table, watches Jensen watching him over the rim of his coffee cup.

"Sleep well?" Jensen asks, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

Misha lets the coffee slide scalding hot down the back of his throat; he instantly feels more human. "Apparently."

"Nice cock," Jensen deadpans with a nod to Misha's coffee cup and Misha laughs, despite the stupidity of the joke.

"So I've been told," he answers with what he knows is a wicked grin.

Jensen smiles and takes another sip of coffee nonchalantly, but the look in his eyes is heated nonetheless.

They drink in comfortable silence, enjoying the warmth of the sun coming through the kitchen windows. It's perfectly domestic and not at all as disturbing as that ought to be.

Jensen picks up a cook book from the pile of crap on the table and idly flips through. "Didn't figure you for a cook."

Misha shrugs, wraps his hands around his mug to warm them. "My talents are endless and varied."

"So I'm finding out," Jensen murmurs, sets the book down, but something catches his eye and he slides papers out from under a pile. Misha recognises them instantly as his unsigned contract.

Jensen glances at it, looks up at Misha curiously. "You are coming back, aren't you?"

Misha doesn't know the answer to that. Doesn't have one to give him.

Jensen frowns at the silence. "Seriously?"

Misha sighs, sets his mug down in front of him. "I don't know."

"Oh," Jensen says, sets the contract back down again. "Can I ask why?"

"You can ask, but I don't know that I can answer," he says, truthfully. "I'm working through some...stuff."

Jensen sits back in his chair, observes Misha frankly. The seriousness is somewhat ruined by the tufts of bedhair sticking up out of place. "Okay," he says finally.

"That's it?" Misha asks, somewhat incredulously. He figured he'd have to defend himself, or launch into some ridiculous 'it's not you, it's me' speech to justify even contemplating not signing, not coming back. If it were Jared across from him, he'd have to come up with a list of reasons on the spot and begin defending against the barrage of needling. And that'd be before the physical torture kicked in.

Jensen just shrugs, finishes his coffee with one last swallow and pushes away from the table. "It's not my decision to make," he says, placing his mug in the sink and filling it with water from the tap.

Misha stays at the table, frowning into his coffee cup. He's not sure he isn't a little bit miffed that Jensen isn't trying to argue with him. Which is ridiculous.

"I'm gonna head home," Jensen says.

He doesn't sound mad or resigned or anything in particular, and Misha isn't sure how to read it. So he nods, unable to find words that don't sound fifteen years too young for him to say.

But before Jensen turns and leaves the kitchen he stops, bends down and presses his mouth to Misha's. His lips are soft and coffee-warmed and Misha can't help but open his own, allow Jensen in. The kiss is soft and exploratory, tasting of Misha's fair trade Peruvian coffee.

Jensen pulls away after a few moments, his breath hot against Misha's cheek. "Come by later?" he murmurs softly.

Misha smiles involuntarily. "I think I can make room in my schedule." He pulls Jensen by the back of his neck, deepens a new kiss until they're both slightly breathless.

Jensen groans and pulls back. "Later," he says firmly and with a last wanting look he heads out into the entryway. Misha listens as Jensen pulls on shoes. Can hear him dialling numbers on the keypad of his phone, talking to someone, maybe his driver, maybe a cab company. And then the door closes behind him with a sharp _snick_ and the house is silent.

Misha stares at the contract on the table in front of him.

He pulls it closer, fishes a pen out from under last week's newspapers and a half-done crossword book.

He's still not sure. Even as he holds the pen, scribbles back and forth on the corner of some unopened mail to get the ink running, he doesn't know if he can sign it. Doesn't know if he's meant to, if this is where his life should be heading. Maybe he missed a sign, an exit he should have gotten off at.

In the back of his mind he still wants to cling to the starving artist cliché. The creative stranger who lives in a house he built, carves wood into furniture and sets balloons on fire in the park. It's truer to who he is, who he has always felt like he should be. It's why he left the White House, bowed out of radio and despite a lot of bit parts, never really aimed for anything other than guest roles. None of those things had turned out the way he expected, mostly for the worst.

He doesn't want to lose the romance though. To lose himself even as he searches for the reality of the real him.

The series of conventions he went to over the last summer, the fanmail and recognition is so very fucking strange, no matter how many times he does it. Having tens of thousands of people watch the rubbish he types onto the internet, people asking for autographs at the airport when he flies into Vancouver. It's not normal, and he's keenly aware of it.

He doesn't want to get to a stage where it _is_.

And then there's Jensen.

Not in a stupid way. As much as he wants to explore this new thing he may have with Jensen, this potential, he knows it isn't going to make his decision for him. He's had too many hearts broken, aged too many years for 'like' to equal 'follow'.

But in a different way Jensen _is_ part of the equation. The person Misha works closest with, watches at cons paraded around with security. Who sits down to take fan photos instead of standing and hugging in them because he's worried about being mobbed.

As much as he doesn't want to admit it, he _had_ thought that Jensen was somewhat celebrity 'precious'. Maybe not at the stage of requesting Evian and blue M &Ms, but special nonetheless.

The best part of having fans, having people who adore you, is _that they adore you_. A whole sea of people who willingly stand still and let you study them, let you fuck with them. Who are down to earth and sometimes crazy but never ever boring. Humanity on display for you. How amazing is that?

And so yeah, he'd thought Jensen's aloofness was kinda douchey. A little too untouchable. Certainly the line-hopping and thing at the bar had seemed to confirm it.

But as he sits, staring at the neon yellow "sign here" sticker that's curling at its edge, he recognises that he's been wrong. Jensen isn't as aloof as he is careful. Keeps parts to himself; not all, but a definite core. In a way, if Misha's honest with himself, he already does it too. He fucks with the fans for fun, absolutely, because what's the point if it isn't fun? But he also does it to hide. To deflect a question that hits too close to the bone or leads into murky territory. To keep some of him to him. Exactly the same as Jensen.

And when the past two years are put in that context, when Jensen's pride at being professional explains away the distance... When the smarting aside about standing in for Jared explains away bad behaviour. When Misha thinks of Jensen in the park, at the Kane gig, at home in his ridiculously white kitchen, where the money he'd spent on a sound system reflects only who Jensen really is, not what he pretends to be. When he thinks about it like that...

Jensen really isn't Hollywood at all. Chris had been right, and Misha knew it the second he said it. Jensen just has different mechanisms than Misha does for hanging onto who he is.

And if Jensen can do it - Jensen who is much more famous than Misha, and as far from 'Hollywood' with his Texan roots as Misha is with his Hippie ones, then clearly the pull of money is not so great that it can ensnare anyone it wants.

But his pen hovers over the dotted line, hesitant.

 

* * *


	12. Chapter 12

**Epilogue**

In the end, he signs the papers. Of course he does. In retrospect he doesn't even know why it felt like such a big deal - though by the way he'd dragged out the signing, it clearly had been. Not that he thinks he necessarily made the right choice, but it doesn't appear to be as wrong a choice as he'd been worried about. Sliding the envelope into the post hadn't relieved any kind of weight from his mind, but it had at least made it a little less cluttered.

The summer rolls on, and a considerable amount of it is spent together.

Lazy mornings at Jensen's curled up in sun and skin. Icarus settled at the end of the bed between their ankles. Light touches that become more targeted, someone flipped onto their back and gasps becoming groans. Icarus huffing, oh so terribly put out, before he jumps off the now not-so sedate sleeping area. Misha laughs at him and makes a comment about turtles before Jensen silences him with his mouth.

Misha joins Jensen in the darkroom set up in one of the guest bathrooms, watches as Jensen develops the photos he'd taken during the ballooning afternoon. Distracts him from the process with a kiss to the back of the neck, hands sliding around Jensen's waist and pulling him back tight. The photographs in their trays of chemicals overdevelop into burnt out grays and blacks as he pushes Jensen back onto the toilet lid, straddles his legs and kisses him aroused simply because he can. In the red light of the darkroom bulb Jensen's eyes are blown wide and black and Misha can see himself reflected in them.

They go camping up in the mountains, both of them silent and in their own thoughts, passing a water bottle back and forth. They set up camp and Jensen reads in the sun while Misha explores the rocky outcrops nearby. To his credit, Jensen considers gravely the pine cone gift he's given when Misha ambles back to the tent. He shows his appreciation by tugging Misha down into the mess of sleeping bags and pulling clothes off Misha's sunburned skin.

Jensen takes Misha out to screenings that he's just famous enough to be invited to. Sometimes they smile for the photographers, sign autographs and flirt with interviewers. Well, Misha flirts, anyway. Other times they slip in unnoticed, avoid the paparazzi and take seats in the back where nobody will notice when Misha rubs Jensen hard through his khakis.

In turn, Misha takes Jensen to all _his_ spots. Shows him the kooky places off the beaten track. Introduces him to the sea of strange and heartfelt people that congregate around him because _something_ exciting is bound to happen. When it does, Jensen throws himself into it whole-heartedly and Misha can't help but adore him for it.

Jared comes back with Gen, a week or two before filming, and he picks it up straight away. Looks between the two of them and proclaims "No fucking way. Seriously?!" Misha startles, because his poker face is nothing if not perfection, and he begins, "What...but how?" But Jensen just claps him on the shoulder and laughs, "No point in questioning. He always knows. It's his fucking annoying talent." Misha considers this and allows that Jared has to be talented at something. Jared cuffs him around the ear.

Eventually hiatus comes to an end.

 

* * *

 

 **July 2010**

They're finishing up a scene for one of the first episodes of season six when it occurs to Misha that signing on as Castiel for another two seasons was a pretty good choice in more ways than one. He finds he isn't really finished with this acting lark just yet. It surprises him more than it should. Maybe the creativity is more defined, more about realising someone else's visions than his own, but it's still creation. Still a challenge. He remembers that there was a reason he went into the business in the first place.

Moreover, Vancouver is a lot more bearable now that he's got a better balance in life. He's always felt mixing business with pleasure is more natural than the artificial rules of social conduct; he enjoys mixing the pleasure with business as often as possible. And on one memorable occasion, Jensen pushed into a corner of wardrobe behind racks of clothing, when it really wasn't possible.

He's on his way back from a read-through of a scene with Jared and Jim when he sees Jensen up ahead of him, coming out of the makeup trailer and heading back to his own.

With a quick jog, he falls into step beside him. Jensen looks up, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Have fun?"

Misha nods. "Despite Jared's farting, yes. Jim threatened to shove a cork up his ass."

Jensen laughs. "I'd like to see that... "

Misha thinks he probably wouldn't. He's about to ask if Jensen wants to run lines when he gets a better idea. He isn't needed on set for at least another couple of hours, and Jensen doesn't seem to be in any kind of hurry. He's pretty sure the guys aren't even filming until his scene anyway.

Trying for unobtrusive, he circles his fingers around Jensen's wrist as they walk.

Jensen looks down at his hand and back up with a smirk. "Something you want, Misha?"

"Always," he answers, throws his voice down into _Castiel_.

Jensen's eyes flash heat and he opens his mouth to speak but Misha doesn't let him, just tugs sharply, veering them to the right and his own trailer. He leads Jensen up the steps and inside, closes the door with a tight _snick_.

This time it's Misha who pushes Jensen up against the door.

A blow job and some serious finger-shaped bruising later and Misha is pretty sure he'd sign his name to just about anything if asked.

It feels good and it feels _right_.

He's found peace.

 

* * *

 

End.

 

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to kriari because it simply would not have gotten done without her constant support and alpha/beta work at the times when I thought it would never amount to anything. Many thanks to blue_fjords for her read through, support and ameri-pick! and cupiscent for direction advice.


End file.
